How to Format your Hard disk

 image of hard disk

We have discussed how you can format your hard disk using quick method, but have not mention how you format it using Windows built-in or command button. This article is all about how you can format it using another method.
>> Check How : Easiest way you can format your hard disk

Using Windows’ built-in Disk Management tool

Type diskmgmt.msc or Disk Management into the search box in Vista, 7, 8 or 10 and then click on only result that appears in the menu above, with the same name. This is the easiest way to launch Disk Management, but you’ll also find it in the Control Panel if you search for ‘disk’ and select the ‘Create and format hard disk partitions’. Disk Management isn’t as powerful as a standalone partition management tool, but it is still capable of formatting data.
When you install a new (additional) hard drive in your PC, you might wonder why it doesn’t appear in Windows Explorer.
The reason is because it needs to be initialised and formatted – you can do this in Disk Management. When the tool loads, it will analyse all your computer’s drives and will prompt you to initialise a new disk that it finds. If your disk is larger than 2TB, you should opt for GPT (GUID Partition Table). This setting also lets you create more than four partitions. If you don’t see a prompt, look in the list of drives and you should see one that says ‘Not Initialized’. Right-click on it and choose Initialize Disk. Once that’s done, right-click in the hatched Unallocated space and choose New Simple Volumeā€¦ Follow the instructions, choosing how big you want the partition to be (in MB – 1024MB = 1GB), and which drive letter you want (one will be chosen, but you can opt to change it if you wish). When you come to format the partition, our advice is the same as in the Quick Format section above. If you select a size for the partition that’s smaller than the total capacity of the drive, say 500B on a 1TB drive, you’ll end up with some unallocated space on the drive which you can format by repeating the process you’ve just completed.

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Changing a partition’s size

You can use Disk Management to expand or shrink a partition. Simply right-click on one and choose the appropriate option from the menu that appears. If shrinking, the partition will be checked to find out how much empty space it contains. It’s a little confusing as the numbers are displayed in MB rather than GB, but you can adjust the amount of space to shrink and the ‘Total size after shrink’ will be updated. You can’t shrink a partition beyond the point where files are located – you may be able to free up space by defragmenting the drive first. Conversely you can only expand a partition if there is unused space on the drive.If not, the option will be greyed out.

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