Reformat external hdd windows 7

At the bottom end of Disk Management, you can see the graphical representation of the physical drives installed in your computer. Disk Management is the place that allows you to create and attach virtual hard disk files in Windows OS. You can create single makes, which acts like a Hard Drive, which offers you to store data on them from the primary hard drive or any other location like an external hard drive. You can format your Hard disk drive with the help of Disk Management.

The utility is an inbuilt Windows tool that can be used to perform the following functions:. If you are preparing to perform a reformat on your computer's hard drive, then you must take necessary precautions before moving forward with the process.

The formatting method will erase absolutely everything on the disk if you don't make the right arrangements. Here are the things that you must do before cleaning the hard drive. Reformatting is the method of erasing the used space of a disk drive or the entire storage device. Such a scenario arises if you want to use a Mac-based disk with a Windows computer, you would need to reformat it using a Windows-compatible file system that would be the FAT Here in this section, we will discuss the method to format and reformat a volume of the hard drive through the disk management utility.

After formatting a hard drive, you will find that the software program conflicts or glitches that were causing problems on your PC will disappear, and the computer's performance will improve significantly.

You can perform this procedure on any kind of USB flash drive and external hard drive. New volumes are created if you intend to create new partitions or change the size of your volume. For example, if you have recently installed an SSD on your computer, then you will find an unallocated storage space where the previous version of your Windows OS was stored.

You can create and format a new disk volume on a hard disk, with that unallocated disk space on your computer's hard drive. After formatting your hard drive and losing all the data as a result, if you intend to use those files again, then there is a way to recover all of that data back. But, you should not save any new information on the formatted hard drive, or it will be overwritten entirely, so it is extremely essential to perform the recovery operation as soon as possible.

You can recover your data by using data recovery software on your PC. We recommended that you use the Wondershare Recoverit data recovery software for Windows to restore deleted files from the formatted hard drive in Windows 7.

After installing the app, you are required to launch it from the Start menu by searching Recoverit and double-clicking on the icon. From there, you are required to follow our three-step process to recover deleted files.

After the Recoverit data recovery software for windows is opened on the computer, then please follow the steps mentioned below:. Formatting a drive on Windows 7 is an easy as well as fast, which saves the user both time and money. If in case your hard drive gets infected with some virus, then you must perform a full format on your drive. Data Recovery for iPhone. How to format an external hard drive? There are many methods which can help you quickly format an external hard drive. In this article, we will show you three easy methods to help you securely and quickly format an external hard drive.

As the formatting process will erase all data on your external hard drive, please make a backup before you format the external hard drive. Connect the external hard drive to your computer, then open My Computer and find the connected external hard drive, right click the external hard drive. It shows a menu of all operations and tools. Just click Quick Format. Then you can securely and quickly format the external hard drive. It's located under Storage. Then find the connected external hard drive.

Right-click it and choose Format to open the disk-formatting wizard. You can now format the external hard drive within a few clicks. However, the formatted data still can be recovered by data recovery software. Article Summary. Method 1. Plug your hard drive into your computer. Insert the drive's USB cable into one of the thin, rectangular slots in your computer's casing.

If you're using a desktop computer, USB ports are typically in either the front or the back of the computer's CPU box. It's on the left side of the File Explorer window. Click external hard drive's name. It's under the "Devices and drives" heading in the middle of the This PC window. Clicking the drive will select it. It's a menu item in the top-left side of the This PC window. This flash drive-shaped icon is in the Manage toolbar near the top of the window.

Clicking it opens the Format window for your external drive. Click the "File System" box. It's below the "File System" heading near the top of the page. FAT32 - Works on Windows and Mac, but has a storage limit of 32 gigabytes with an individual file size of 4 gigabytes. Similar to FAT32, but has no storage limit. Select a format.

Click the format you want to use to select it. If you've formatted your drive before, check the Quick Format box as well. Click Start , then click OK. Doing so prompts Windows to begin formatting your drive. Your external hard drive's files will be erased during this process. Click OK when prompted. Your external drive has now been reformatted to your selected file structure. Method 2. If you're using an iMac, you may find the USB ports on the side of your keyboard or on the back of the iMac's screen.

Not all Macs have USB ports. Open the Finder. It's the blue, face-shaped icon in the Dock. You can also just click the desktop. Click Go. This menu item is in the upper-left side of the screen. Click Utilities. It's near the bottom of the Go drop-down menu. Double-click Disk Utility. You'll find this in the middle of the Utilities page. Click your external hard drive's name.

You'll see it in the window on the left side of the Utilities window. Click the Erase tab. It's at the top of the Disk Utility window. Click the "Format" drop-down box. It's in the middle of the page. Only works on Mac.