How to erase a partition?

B0bbyEwing

Got a second hand drive. It came partitioned.

I want to make it as one but can't.

I had this once before with a used drive but forgot how I sorted it. I remember it taking me a bit of faff back then too. Probably only because I don't know what I'm doing.

I have Googled this, which said to use cmd or powershell. As the step didn't bring up cmd & powershell with admin was there, I followed the steps to list partitions - but it said no partitions were on the drive.

I gave the left hand side a letter. Can't do that to the right hand side.

Went back to powershell & it listed the left hand side partition.

So basically I just want it to be a 4TB drive, not as it is in the image.

CrazyHorse99

Looks like you have two volumes on the drive that are unpartitioned.

I would use diskpart in cmd prompt to delete the volumes as per the below commands:

list disk

select disk 5

clean

create partition primary

format fs=ntfs quick

assign letter=["letter"]

exit

Woodstok2000

Is it a load bearing partition?

B0bbyEwing

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82071943#Comment_82071943

Thanks.

Though what does that "primary" bit mean? This won't interfere with anything else will it?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82071954#Comment_82071954

What does that mean?

I bought this drive Tues for cheap, it turned up today. I connected it & it showed as the image in the OP.

Thats about as much as I know.

CrazyHorse99

I think he's taking the mick lol.

Everything you're doing in those commands only effects the drive you selected.

Primary just means a normal data partition really.

If it gives you an error such as mbr drive, then you'll need to use the convert command to change the type of disk.

Just double check that it shows up as disk 5 so you don't select the wrong disk lol. Because the clean command will delete the data.

mta999

use windows disk management utility (win+X, then choose it)

rt click.on the partition and choose delete volume

B0bbyEwing

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82071978#Comment_82071978

Lol I should've spotted that but tbh my head is mush as I'm still battling a banging head I've had since 5 so I'm not doing a lot of thinking tbh.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82071988#Comment_82071988

That was the first thing I tried. Delete isn't even listed as an option.

CrazyHorse99

Disk management has it's limitations I find in scenarios like this, I've found myself having to resort to disk part so many times when dealing with problem drives that I just default to it now as it's more versatile.

On a couple of rare occasions though even that didn't work and I've had to access a drive from a Linux os and format it from there.

Vitor

Boot a live Linux of a USB stick and use the parted command.

CrazyHorse99

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82072084#Comment_82072084

Do you happen to know why this is sometimes necessary?

Never actually investigated why parted worked when disk part didn't on those rare occasions.

Newcad

In another thread I advised the OP to get MiniTool Partition Wizard (Free).

MT Partition Wizard can delete partitions, resize partitions, etc. etc.