- Reformat Seagate External Hard Drive Windows 10
- 5+ Fixes To Format (External) Hard Drive In Windows 10 - EaseUS
- Reformat External Hard Drive Windows 10
Position: How Tos - Partition Management - How to reformat hard drive in Windows 10/8/7?
Summary
How to format a disk with ease? Are you looking for a way to reformat hard drive? In this page, you can find several guides that help you format or reformat a hard disk quickly in Windows 10/8/7. Reformatting a hard drive which has been partitioned and used brings about a fresh start of the disk and the formatting process can be different depending on the method you use. Free disk partition software DiskGenius allows users to format all kinds of disks to NTFS, exFAT, FAT32, EXT2, EXT3 and EXT4, and disk reformatting is quite easy to follow. Let's take a close look at how to reformat a hard disk.
- Use Windows Setup or External Storage Media to Format C. This method is the most convenient.
- #1 Reformat hard drive for free with MiniTool Partition Wizard. Download and install the 100% clean.
DiskGenius - Effective and easy to use disk partition software to format, clone, image, wipe disk & partitions.
ôHow to Reformat a Drive on Windows. The process to reformat an external hard drive on Windows is straightforward. Firstly, connect your external hard drive to your computer using a USB port. Wait for Windows to recognize the connected drive. Next, open File Explorer, navigate to This PC in the left-hand column, and click on the shortcut. Just a quick guide on how to find your hard drive once you plug it in on your computer on windows 10. In this video I demonstrate how to reformat an external hard drive in Windows 8/8.1. This this tutorial should work just the same on Windows 7 and Windows 10.
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- Guide 1: How to reformat a secondary hard drive?
Reformat a hard drive
The process of reformatting a hard drive removes all information and data on the disk. Thus, disk reformatting might be a drastic, as it wipes all data and you need to restore important data from backup afterwards. If the formatted disk is a boot drive, you will have to reinstall Windows operating system. As to newly bought hard disk, you need to partition and format it first so that it can be used to store data. But if your hard drive has been used for some time, it should be filled with all types of files and data, such as operating system, installed applications and individual data (photos, music, videos, etc.).Formatting operating will remove all these files from your disk.
Since a hard drive contains system and data, why do users want to reformat it? Here are some reasons of reformatting a hard drive. First, clean your systm. It is known to users that operating system won't run smoothly like it used to after years, for it slows down as you keep adding or changing hardware, software or configurations. It'll be frustrated to work with a slow machine. In such situation, you need to try reformatting disk and reinstalling Windows. Second, change file system type. Formatting is the best and quickest way to change file system type, such as change NTFS to exFAT, convert FAT32 to NTFS, format disk to EXT4. Windows computers uses NTFS, FAT32 and exFAT, if you want to use the disk under Linux system, you should format it to EXT4, EXT3 or EXT2 file system. Third, fix corrupted partition. Once a partition gets corrupted or inaccessible, you can easily repair it via quick formatting. Last, clear virus and spyware on the disk. It is easy to get infected with virus or malware if your machine is not protected by effective anti-virus programs. Reformatting hard disk can remove virus and gives you a clean state.
One thing you should be noted that reformatting hard drive does not permanently wipe data on the disk, which means you can perform hard drive recovery and get back lost data from formatted partition with the help of an efficient data recovery program. Therefore, if you want to sell, donate or discard the hard drive, you need to completely wipe hard drive using professional tools instead of simply reformatting disk.
There is one important thing you need to do before formatting your hard disk, i.e. backup, create a backup for your important files, documents and anything you want to continue to use once the disk gets formatted. You should also have a backup for information like web history, favorites, book marks, as such data are difficult to be restored without a backup. Another important thing you need to keep is product keys to your paid software so that you can reinstall them after disk formatting. When it comes to the devices that used to store backup files, you may have multiple choices. Many users tend to keep backup on external hard drive, and some would like to use online servers. On matter what device you choose, try to keep at least two copies of backup.
Guide 1: How to reformat a secondary hard drive?
We start with formatting a second disk, for it is simpler. A secondary drive mentioned here is the disk or partition which is not bootable and is not related to system partition. The function of a secondary drive is to store data instead of installing operating system. If there are two or more disks on your computer, those disks except for system disk are regarded as secondary disks. Thus, a secondary disk can also be an external hard drive, USB flash drive or memory card. In this guide, we provide 3 methods to reformat a non-system hard drive: Disk Management, DiskGenius and DiskPart commands.
Method 1: Reformat hard drive using Windows 10 Disk Management
Step 1 Open Disk Management on your computer.
There can be a number of ways to open Disk Management depending on the Windows version. One easy way to launch Disk Management from Windows 10 computer is right-clicking Start button and choosing Disk Management. After Disk Management shows up, you can find the disk to be formatted.
Step 2 Right-click on the disk you want to reformat and choose Format option from the context menu.
Note: you should make sure you are going to format the correct disk; otherwise you will face data loss issue. In Disk Management, you cannot format C drive or the partition where Windows is installed. To format a system disk or volume, move to Guide 2.
Step 3 Set formatting parameters and click OK button.
In this step, you can set volume label, file system type, allocation unit size etc. If you have no idea on these settings, then follow default value.
Step 4 Click OK to the warning message about formatting and the drive will be formatted right away.
Formatting this volume will erase all data on it. Backup any data you want to keep before formatting.
Method 2: Reformat hard disk with disk partition software DiskGenius
DiskGenius is free disk partition software and it can reformat hard drive easily and quickly. No matter what disk style the disk is, GPT, MBR or dynamic disk, it is able to completely format it. This freeware supports formatting drive to NTFS, exFAT, FAT32, EXT2, EXT3 and EXT4 file system. Apart from formatting hard drive, it is capable of permanently wiping hard drive and other storage devices, so that files can never be recovered by any methods. In this part, we are going to use DiskGenius to reformat a disk and here is the quick formatting guide.
Step 1 Install and launch DiskGenius from your computer. Select the disk to be formatted and click Format button from toolbar.
Step 2 Select file system type and click Format button.
From the drop-down list of File System, you can choose NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, EXT4, EXT3 and EXT2 file system; The cluster size is set to realize 4K partition alignment and the default setting has met the requirement; volume label is the name of the partition and it appears next the drive's icon. You can set a name on your own or leave it blank to let Windows name it.
Step 3 Click OK on the pop-up message box and DiskGenius starts to format the drive.
Method 3: Reformat HDD via DiskPart Command
In this section, we explain how you can format a hard disk using Diskpart commands. If you are novice user and not familiar with these commands, you can try previous methods to complete formatting task.
Step 1 On Windows 10 computer, right-click on Start button and choose Windows PowerShell (Admin).
If you receive message box given by User Account Control, then click Yes to let the tool work.
Step 2 In Windows PowerShell, type diskpart and hit Enter key.
Step 3 Type following command one by one and press Enter key after each command.
List disk (This command lists all available disks on your computer.)
Select disk # (Replace # with the disk number which needs to be reformatted.)
Clean (This step will delete all partitions and data on the disk.)
Create partition primary (This command will create a primary partition on the disk to be formatted.)
Format fs=ntfs quick (Perform quick format for the drive and format it to NTFS file system)
Assign (assign a drive letter so that you can view the partition in File Explorer.)
Guide 2: How to reformat a bootable hard drive?
Reformatting a bootable hard drive is a little more complicated than formatting a secondary disk, for Windows does not allow users to format system drive when it is running. In this case, you need to format disk without booting to system. Once system disk gets formatted, you will have to reinstall Windows to make computer bootable. In this section, we use DiskGenius to do the task.
Step 1 Create bootable USB disk for DiskGenius WinPE edition.
Insert a USB disk to computer and launch DiskGenius and click Tools ->Create WinPE bootable USB drive of DiskGenius, as follows:
Click OK button from the pop-up window and wait for a couple of seconds to create the bootable disk.
Step 2 Change boot sequence in BIOS.
Restart computer and press the specified key to enter BIOS and change boot order to make computer boot from the USB disk. Save changes and exit, and computer will restart again. DiskGenius WinPE edition will be launched automatically, once your computer restarts. If you do not know how to enter BIOS or change boot sequence, you can seek help from the motherboard tech support.
Step 3 In DiskGenius WinPE edition, select system disk/partition you want to format and click Format button from toolbar.
Step 4 Set formatting configurations and click Format button form the pop-p window.
How to recover data after formatting hard disk?
Disk reformatting process removes all information on the disk, but in most cases, formatting does not permanently erase all data. Therefore, we have great chance to recover formatted partition or disk. If you accidentally reformat a hard drive or partition that contains important data, you can try following method to get back formatted files. DiskGenius is the best choice to recover lost, deleted or formatted data and you can download the trial version to scan your disk and have a test if your files are still recoverable.
Step 1 Launch DiskGenius, select the formatted drive and click File Recovery button from toolbar.
Then you can see a pop-up window where you can select recovery options.
Step 2 Select Complete Recovery and Search For Known File Types options, and click Start button.
Then DiskGenius starts to search for lost files from the formatted disk. The scanning may take a while if the device has too large space.
Step 3 Preview files listed in scanning result and check if files are correct.
File preview is very useful function and it helps to quickly find out files you need and test if files are damaged. The follow screenshot shows the software is previewing a jpg file.
Step 4 Copy and save files to a secure location.
Select files and folders you want to restore and right-click on them to choose Copy To. Next, you should choose a different location to save recovered data.
Conclusion
We have introduced multiple methods to format/reformat a secondary hard drive and system disk as well as one way to recover data from formatted disk. If you want to format a hard drive, try these methods. And if you have any problem or need any help about disk formatting, please feel free to contact our technical support team.
DiskGenius - Free partition manager to format/reformat hard drive, external HDD, SD card, SSD, virtual disk, etc.
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Summary :
If you are trying to access an external hard drive but are told that your external hard drive needs formatting, you are likely to find the best solutions here. MiniTool Power Data Recovery is the best way to recover data from not formatted hard drive. Then, you can format the hard drive without worrying.
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External hard drive is very useful when you want to copy large files between computers, or back up your important files like photos, videos, documents and other data. They typically have large capacities and can be connected to computer via USB port or FireWire.
External hard drives enjoy different forms, such as SSD, USB flash drive, Sony pen drive and so on, and vary a lot in their capacities from gigabytes to terabyte…However, you may see external USB hard drive not formatted error, saying you need to format the disk before you can use it; considering there are important files on the hard drive, you feel uneasy.
My Seagate External Hard Drive Shows Not Formatted
'So I have a Seagate 3TB External Hard Drive that all of a sudden tells me it needs to be formatted. I have 2.8 TB of files, pictures, videos and more on that drive with no backups of it anywhere. So basically, when it is plugged in, every 10 seconds or so it disappears and then reappears with this pop-up message: 'You need to format the disk in drive G: before you can use it. Do you want to format it?' Obviously I don't want to format it as that means I lose all my data…'
Phenomena: After you have plugged your external HD into a computer, you can’t open it to access the files because the Windows pops up an error message which reads “You need to format disk in drive before you can use it”OR “The disk in drive X is not formatted” (appear in Windows XP).
It seems that such kind of data loss problem happens every day in our daily life. In fact, not formatted error not only happens on external hard drive, but also appears on almost all storage devices such as HDD, SSD, USB flash drive, pen drive, memory card and so on. When not formatted error happens on those devices, Disk management displays their file systems as RAW and users are unable to access the drive in Windows.
Facing such situation, what should you do? Are you going to format the hard drive as you are told? Next, we will tell you more about external hard drive needs formatting.
Why My External Hard Drive Keeps Asking Me to Format It
Before we go to the solutions, we would like to show you the reasons that may lead to this error. In this way, you can avoid the improper operations to your external hard drive OR prevent the terrible things from happening. Below are the possible factors for external hard drive not formatted:
- file system is not recognized by Windows. For instance, file system is Ext 2/3/4.
- The external hard drive suffers from sudden power outage when it is used to transfer files or something else;
- The external hard drive is improperly pulled out or forced to pull out;
- The external hard drive gets virus attack;
- There are bad sectors in the external hard drive.
- …
External Hard Drive Needs Formatting? Not Now!
When running into external hard drive not formatted error, most users have such misunderstanding: they think they have to take Windows' suggestion and have to format the hard drive without other solutions. Because in their minds, only when they can open the external hard drive, they are able to access files stored on the drive.
The reality? It is true that formatting may enable you to regain the access to the external hard drive, but have you ever think about the consequence once you have formatted the external hard drive? Yes you will find no files on the drive after formatting.
Therefore, for those who have no backups, keep this point in mind: DO NOT FORMAT your external hard drive before you take out the data in it. Formatting is a bad idea if the drive is failing, and that procedure means you will lost the file structure (folders, organization, file names…). As a matter of fact, the data in the external hard drive may get recovered as long as they are not overwritten. So remember the more changes you have made, the less chances you have for data recovery.
So how to fix the external hard drive not formatted error and recover data on the hard drive? Well, you need to use the software without altering the data on the drive or get it to someone who can help you out technically. And this article will show you what to do step-by-step.
Solutions to External Hard Drive Not Formatted
If you have not made a piece of backup, you'd better go ahead reading the following content. What should you do to recover data from not formatted hard drive without data backup?
You can try the following methods, maybe they will help you open your hard drive.
Solution 1. Try the Easy Things First
- Connect it to another USB port or another operating system and see if you can read the files.
- Take your chance to restart your computer and see if this way works for you.
- Run anti-virus software to check and kill possible virus on the external hard drive.
These may seem meaningless but sometimes they do help people get out of trouble. If no miracle happens, try the second solution.
Solution 2. Check Your Hard Drive for Errors
- At the Start button, click Run.
- Type “cmd” into the blank and hit Enter key.
- Type “chkdsk n:/f” (replace n with the true drive letter of the problematic partition) into the Command Prompt window and then press the Enter button.
- It will start repairing damaged files and you will see some of your filenames before it finally asks if you want to save lost chains into another location. Click 'Yes' just in case.
If CHKDSK can run this process normally, you can try again reading your external hard drive after restarting your computer. CHKDSK usually takes some time to fix the error, so please be patient. When it is finished, your external hard drive may become normal as before.
However, if you are unable to go through this process, and encounter the following message: the type of the file system is RAW, CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives, what should you do?
Any other tips for how to restore these files from not formatted external hard drive?
Solution 3. Recover Data from Not Formatted Hard Drive
If your external hard drive keeps asking you to format it after you have tried the above solution, you can download free MiniTool Power Data Recovery which is an excellent program that brings file recovery to Windows to have a try. This software works great on Windows 7/8/8.1/10, both 32 bit and 64 bit, and is able to recover the mainstream file types on audio, video, image, email, documents, etc. With this tool, you can easily get your inaccessible files out from unformatted hard drive (RAW drive).
MiniTool Power Data Recovery composes of four data recovery parts, and they are This PC, Removable Disk Drive, Hard Disk Drive, and CD/DVD Drive. Before you choose any part to begin, you can move the mouse over them to identify whether the external hard drive appears for you to perform data recovery.
Follow these steps to recover data from not formatted hard drive:
Step 1. Launch MiniTool Power Data Recovery, and then select 'This PC' as the RAW partition is shown there (shown as Unidentified). You should be able to identify the external hard drive which needs formatting, double-click on it.
Step 2. Then please wait for the scanning process to finish. The scanning time depends on the capacity of your data in it. When finished, Power Data Recovery will show you the files it has found in tree structure. At this time, you can check whether the files are the one you want.
Note: You can pause/stop the progress once you have found the lost files from the left catalog. Besides, you can press 'Filter' button to choose specific file types to be shown in the middle pane.
Reformat Seagate External Hard Drive Windows 10
Step 3. In this step you are expected to tick the files you want, click 'Save' and then choose a safe location (usually it is another hard drive) to store all data you have selected. However, the Trial Edition do not support file saving. At this time, you need to purchase a license from official MiniTool.
At the end of the process, you can format the external hard drive by using Disk Management or MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition. Both are OK to help format your external hard drive. Their differences are the latter one offers more flexible features and is more user-friendly.
Run “diskmgmt.msc” to load Disk Management, then select the partition which needs formatting and choose “Format” from the context menu. Just follow the guidance to finish. (See Also: Windows Was Unable to Complete the Format)
In Partition Wizard, you have more file system choices. Click on the partition of the external hard drive which needs formatting and then choose 'Format'. Select the file system you want and click 'Apply' finally.
Why Some Files Are Corrupt after the Recovery
Sometimes, you may find out that you are unable to access the recovered files from not formatted external hard drive and Windows tells they are corrupted. You may wonder how it is corrupted because the last time you open it, it is in sound condition.
Here, we would like to inform you that MiniTool Power Data Recovery can only help you recover the lost files with their original states, instead of changing anything on them such as repair the corrupted files or destroy the files. That is to say, if the files Power Data Recovery recovered are corrupted, they were corrupted before the recovery due to some certain reasons before your external hard drive requires formatting. In this case, if the files mean a lot to you, then it is better to find a reliable data repair service to help you out - which is normally a huge expense. Adobe premiere pro cc 2018 version history.
Bottom Line
In this article, we mainly focus on how to fix external hard drive that saying 'external hard drive needs formatting'. Also, you may run into pen drive not formatted error due to the similar reasons. The good news is that Power Data Recovery is possible to recover data in all kinds of hard drives including the pen drive.
All in all, if the data in it is meaningless or you have backups, format it directly. If not, you should recover data from not formatted hard drive or turn to the other solutions offered in this post before formatting. If you have any questions while using MiniTool software, don’t hesitate to contact us via [email protected]. For any questions or suggestions, please leave us comments below, we read every thread.
External Hard Drive Needs Formatting FAQ
When you get a new external hard drive, you need to create and format new partitions on it to make it usable. When there are file system problems on the external hard drive, formatting is the best way to regain access to the partition.
5+ Fixes To Format (External) Hard Drive In Windows 10 - EaseUS
Formatting will define the file system and cluster size of the partition. So, when there are file system errors, or you want to change the file system, or you want to change cluster size of the partition for extending purpose, formatting is the best way.
Formatting will not erase everything on a hard drive, it only removes the address table. So, when you format a partition in Windows, be aware that data deleted has the opportunity to get recovered by professional data recovery tools.
Reformat External Hard Drive Windows 10
- Use Disk Management: open Disk Management > select a partition of the external hard drive > choose Format from the context menu > follow the wizard to complete.
- Use diskpart.exe: run diskpart as admin > type list volume and press Enter > type select volume n and press Enter > type format fs=ntfs quick and press Enter.
- Use MiniTool Partition Wizard: select a partition of the external hard drive and choose Format > choose a file system > click OK and Apply.