Format a hard drive Question

millwalll · 24 January 2007 at 10:39AM

hi all got a quick question i asked about formating a hard drive a day ago but now got another question i got about 5 hard drive that i need to format i orded a external hard disk case the other day so i can plug hard drive in and use it as external hard drive but is there way to format the drive like this would i do the same way as before but instead typing format c would it be like format f or what ever the drive is called.

GreenNotM · 24 January 2007 at 10:47AM

if you still have an operating system (XP etc ) - use disk manager to partition and format the drives in the enclosure - see what your C: drive looks like first...... The drives need to be partitioned before formatting ... Using a GUI is better then command line - if you are not sure HTH

Just to make that clear is that five hard drives ??

BillScarab · 24 January 2007 at 11:17AM

Agree with the above. If you don't know how you can get to disk management by

Start, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management

or Start, Run and then enter diskmgmt.msc

It then gives you a nice GUI to partition and format your drives

millwalll · 24 January 2007 at 11:41AM

yeah i got about 5 hard drive i want format and sell on ebay this drive not in the computer tho is will be plug in as external hard drive so can i still format it that way i don't want do a format and it mess about with my laptop that all i just want format the hard drive that be plugged into the eternal hard drive if that makes sense

GreenNotM · 24 January 2007 at 11:47AM

GreenNotM wrote:

if you still have an operating system (XP etc ) - use disk manager to partition and format the drives in the enclosure - see what your C: drive looks like first...... The drives need to be partitioned before formatting ... Using a GUI is better then command line - if you are not sure HTH

..........

GreenNotM · 24 January 2007 at 11:53AM

millwalll wrote:

yeah i got about 5 hard drive i want format and sell on ebay

Check the SMART status of the drive - and do "chkdsk /f /r" as well after formatting.

-TangleFoot- · 24 January 2007 at 1:45PM

millwalll wrote:

...i want format and sell on ebay...

What's the point? The buyer will likely format with their file system of choice anyway, so why not simply leave the drive blank?

Garetha · 24 January 2007 at 1:59PM

-TangleFoot- wrote:

What's the point? The buyer will likely format with their file system of choice anyway, so why not simply leave the drive blank?

The important point is you MUST use one of the tools (listed above under 'leave the drive blank')
Otherwise anyone can still get to your old contents.
Format or even Fdisk do NOT erase.

millwalll · 24 January 2007 at 2:08PM

hi all thanks for the reply but it kinder not the answer i am looking for i know how to format the drive and so on from my other question.

What i want know is if i connect the hard drive as external hard drive can i still format it without it effecting my xp on my laptop or do i need to setup my old computer put one in format that take it out put another one in format that so on so on.
or can i just put the hard drive in my external hard drive case plug that into my laptop that should then bring up in my computer drive f then go format drive f would that work too ?

movieman · 24 January 2007 at 2:15PM

If you put the drive in the external case and connect it, then it should appear in the drive list in the administrative tools and you can just partition and format it from there.

Format or even Fdisk do NOT erase.

I thought a full format overwrites the entire disk and reads back what it wrote to check for bad blocks? It certainly takes long enough

.

-TangleFoot- · 24 January 2007 at 4:33PM

millwalll wrote:

...can i still format it without it effecting my xp on my laptop[?]

The Disk Management tool will allow you to do that, but to actually overwrite the data on the drive you'll still need to use something like Eraser.

Format a hard drive Question

Comments

Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply

🚀 Getting Started

Categories

Is this how you want to be seen?

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free