#Format external hard drive windows 7 windows 10

Some users, especially those who have grasped enough computer knowledge, would like to format external hard drive in Windows 10 with command prompt. Format external hard drive to NTFS or FAT32 with command prompt When it pops up the format window, you can select the file system and set the cluster size according to your requirements.Ĥ. Right-click the external hard drive or partition, choose 'Format.'.ģ. All your hard drives will be displayed here. Connect your external hard drive to your Windows 10 PC.

To format external hard drive, do as below:ġ. Windows 10 Disk Management tool is a native partition manager that can help you solve your basic disk partition problem like extend partition, shrink partition, create partition, format partition, etc. Format external hard drive to NTFS or FAT32 on Windows 10 with Disk Management If there is any important data on the hard drive, please make sure it has been backed up beforehand. ***The operation formatting will delete all data on the hard drive. Next are stepwise guides on the 2 methods. The Windows built-in tool Disk Management and Diskpart can help you.

#Format external hard drive windows 7 how to

How to format an external hard drive in Windows 10? Īctually, to format external hard drive for Windows 10, you can format it to NTFS or FAT32. No matter what is your reason, the most important thing is learning how to do it. Besides, when the current file system of your external hard drive is not compatible with some device, you will also need to reformat it to another different file system. For example, you may need to format partitions to perform a clean installation of Windows system, get rid of a virus or malware, delete files from the external hard drive to re-use it, etc. There are many reasons that you need to format your external hard drive in Windows 10/8/7. Need to format external hard drive in Windows 10 ▶ Cannot format external hard drive in Windows 10 - What to do? ▶ How to format an external hard drive in Windows 10? In the right-click menu, press Format.▶ Need to format external hard drive in Windows 10 On the right, in the ' Devices and drives' section, right-click or press and hold the drive that represents the SD card, USB memory stick or hard drive that you want to format. If you are using Windows 10 or Windows 8.1, start File Explorer and go to This PC.

How to format an SD Card, a USB memory stick or a hard drive, from File Explorer (in Windows 10 and 8.1) or Windows Explorer (in Windows 7) NOTE: For the following two sections of this tutorial, we are assuming that you have already plugged in the SD card or the external hard drive, or that you intend to format a hard disk or SSD that is inside your Windows computer or tablet.

To help you out, we made this analysis: FAT32, exFAT or NTFS? How to format SD cards, memory sticks and hard drives.

#Format external hard drive windows 7 free

You cannot recover data from a formatted drive, unless you use special recovery software, like the apps from in this comparison: Which are the best free file recovery tools? Comparing 5 of the most popular programs.Īlso, choosing the right file system is an important choice. If you do, make sure that you copy that data to somewhere else, so that you can continue to use it after you format the drive. Before you format it, you should check whether you have any useful data on it, which you may want to keep. It does not matter whether you want to format a USB memory stick, an SD card or a partition on your hard disk.

#Format external hard drive windows 7 portable

What is different about formatting external storage devices like SD cards, memory sticks or portable hard drives, compared to internal hard disks or SSDsįirst, back up your data and choose the file system.

How to format from the Disk Management tool, in all Windows versions

First, back up your data and choose the file system.