How To Format A Hard Drive On Windows

Reformatting a drive in Windows Vista is usually a pretty simple process, which might lull you into the misconception that reformatting a drive in Windows Vista is no big deal. Wrong. Reformatting a drive means taking the drive back to a blank piece of hardware.

• Format Hard Drive And Reinstall Windows 10
• How To Format A Hard Drive On Windows For Mac
• Windows Hard Drive Format Utility

Search for Windows PowerShell in right click on the result, and select the Run as administrator. You can also do it by pressing Windows key + X and then select Windows Powershell(Admin). To find the drive that you want to format, type the following command and hit Enter: Get-Disk. Type the following command to clean the drive and press Enter. Related: 5 Ways to Check Hard Disk Health on Windows 10. Why Format a Hard Drive? Formatting is the process by which you wipe all data from a hard drive so that new data can be written over the top of it. There are a few different file systems you can format a drive to (NTFS, FAT32 and exFAT being the most popular), each of which works fine in. You can format a drive—and perform other functions like creating and deleting partitions—using Windows' Disk Management tool. But if formatting is all you want to do, there's an easier way. Open File Explorer to the 'This PC' view so that you can see all your drives easily.

Format your drive. Check the 'Format this volume with the following settings' box, then click the 'File system' box and select one of the following: NTFS - Used for Windows-only drives. FAT32 - Used for Windows and Mac. A quality feature in the Windows family is to format a hard disk partition (drive). Users can use this feature in Windows 10 to format a hard disk partition (drive) as well. The user can format a hard disk partition (drive) by using the built-in Disk Management Tool or by using Command Prompt.

Sometimes this is the only choice; for example, when your system has become irreparably corrupted with viruses. But you should try other options before resorting to this drastic step.

1Assuming your system is still functional enough to let you do so, back up everything you can find and close all applications.

Don't worry about software programs because you'll have to reinstall those, anyway.

2Choose Start→Control Panel→System and Maintenance→Administrative Tools.

Note that you have to be logged on as the head honcho — the system administrator — to perform these steps.

3Double-click the Computer Management link. Click the Disk Management link on the left.

The display area in the center will indicate all of the drives set up on your computer.

4Right-click the drive or partition that you want to reformat, and then choose Format from the shortcut menu that appears.

It's worth repeating: Reformatting a drive wipes everything off it, so be sure that's what you want to do before you do it.

If you choose to reformat your system drive (usually the C: drive), you will be essentially wiping Windows Vista from your computer. Be sure that you have the correct system discs that you will need to begin reinstalling Windows Vista once the format is complete.

5In the resulting dialog box, select the options you want (file system and size) and then click OK.

The two file systems types that you can choose from are NTFS and FAT32. NTFS is the default.

Here on this page, we'll include two free methods to help you quick format or fully clean up a hard drive on Windows 10/8/7 with ease:

Formatting hard disk, USB flash drive, pen drive, and memory card, etc., is meaningful and helpful in solving some device issues. For examples:

1. e.g. 1. Incompatible file system error:
2. In most cases, you have to convert FAT32 to NTFS or NTFS to FAT32 by formatting so to make storage devices recognizable by Windows, Mac, or other platforms.

e.g. 2. To format and clean hard drive for Windows installation.

1. e.g. 3. The hard drive is corrupted or it contains soft bad sectors:
2. When device access is denied due to the RAW file system, then Windows asks you to format it before you can use it.

DiskPart Format vs Hard Drive Formatting Tool

Generally, there are three ways to initiate the task - Windows quick format (by right-clicking or using Disk Management), Windows DiskPart command, or a free third-party hard drive format tool.

Windows quick formatting is easy to get started but with limited functions, so the last two options become better choices. What's the difference though? And which way fits you the best?

Here is a feature comparison list between DiskPart Format Command and EaseUS free formatting tool for you to refer to:

For experienced users, you may run DiskPart command to format the disk on your own with instructions in Fix 1 for help. As a beginner, who prefers an easier resolution, we suggest you try the free formatting tool as an alternative to replace DiskPart format command as recommended in Fix 2.

Download free DiskPart alternative formatting tool:

Fix 1. Format Hard Drive Using DiskPart Format Command

To use DiskPart to format a disk, you need to follow the commands below carefully. Any mistakes will cause serious problems.

Here we'll take the method of formatting hard drive using CMD on Windows 10 as an example to show you to detail steps:

# 1. Quick Format Disk Using DiskPart Format Command

Step 1. Open Command Prompt by right-clicking on the Windows icon, select 'Search' and type: command prompt.

Right-click on Command Prompt and select 'Run as administrator'.

Step 2. Type diskpart in Command Prompt and hit Enter.

Step 3. Type DiskPart format command lines in DiskPart and hit Enter each time so as to quick format hard drive:

• list disk
• select disk 2 (Replace 2 with your disk number)
• list volume
• select volume 10 (Replace 10 with the volume number of the partition that you want to format)
• format fs=ntfs quick (If you need to format a hard drive partition to FAT32 or other file systems, replace NTFS with FAT32, exFAT, etc.)

Step 4. Type exit and hit Enter to close the program when DiskPart reports it has successfully formatted the volume.

# 2. Fully Clean and Format Disk Using CMD Command in DiskPart

Step 1. On Windows 10, press Windows + X, select 'Search', and type command prompt, right-click on it and choose 'Run as administrator'.

Step 2. On the Command Prompt black window, type diskpart and hit 'Enter'.

Step 3. Now type list disk and press 'Enter'.

All the disk drives will be listed, including your external drives that connected to the computer.

Step 4. Refer to the list disk information, type select disk + disk number, for example, select disk 2 and press enter.

You're telling DiskPart to locate and lock disk 2 so as to clean and format it with the continuing steps.

Format Hard Drive And Reinstall Windows 10

Step 5. Go on to type clean. This step starts to clean up all files and folders on the selected hard disk.

Step 6. Type create partition primary and press 'Enter'.

Step 7. After DiskPart successfully created the specified partition, type format fs=ntfs (or format fs=exfat) and press 'Enter'. You're telling DiskPart to format the disk to a specific file system, let it be NTFS, exFAT, etc.

Step 8. At last, assign a drive letter to the newly created partition by typing assign.

Step 9. Type exit to close the DiskPart Command Prompt window when the process finishes.

That's a complete guide of formatting hard disk with DiskPart format commands.

Fix 2. Format Hard Drive with DiskPart Alternative - Free Formatting Tool

The other easier way to format disk is to apply a powerful DiskPart alternative formatting tool - a free partition manager software for help.

Here we'd like to recommend you try EaseUS Partition Master Free. It offers easy steps to help you quickly format or clean up an internal HDD, an external USB stick, pen drive, or an SD card, etc. within only a few simple clicks.

Download EaseUS free disk formatting tool and follow the guide below to see how to format the disk.

The whole process is simpler and smoother than formatting hard drive from using DiskPart command prompt.

# 1. 4-Steps: Quick Format Hard Drive using DiskPart Format Alternative

Step 1: Run EaseUS Partition Master, right-click the hard drive partition you intend to format and choose 'Format'.

Step 2: In the new window, set the Partition label, File system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3), and Cluster size for the partition to be formatted, then click 'OK'.

Step 3: Then you will see a warning window, click 'OK' in it to continue.

Step 4: Click the 'Execute Operation' button in the top-left corner to review the changes, then click 'Apply' to start formatting the partition on your hard drive.

# 2. Clean Up Hard Drive by Erasing Disk with EaseUS Free Formatting Tool

Compared to the DiskPart clean command, EaseUS Partition Master Free simplifies the whole process in cleaning up a hard drive.

With it, you can simply erase everything on a hard drive, leaving it as an empty new drive with full size:

Step 1: Install and launch EaseUS Partition Master.

Select the HDD or SSD which you want to wipe. And right-click to choose 'Wipe Data'.

How To Format A Hard Drive On Windows For Mac

Step 2: Set the number of times to wipe data.

You can set to 10 at most. Then Click 'OK'.

Step 3: Check the message.

A message tells you that the computer would restart after disk erase is recommended. Then click 'OK'.

Step 4: Click 'Apply' to apply the changes.

Click 'Execute the operation' and then click 'Apply' to start wiping data.

Bottom Line

On this page, we included two major free methods to help you clean and format a hard drive disk by using DiskPart format command lines and DiskPart alternative - EaseUS free formatting tool.

According to many Windows managers and experienced users, you may also try to format a hard drive by using File Explorer and Disk Management on your own.

For quick and smooth operation, EaseUS Partition Master Free should be your best shot.

People Also Ask About Diskpart Format Command

If you are having further DiskPart formatting questions, check the following questions and listed answers for help.

1. How do I use Diskpart?

As DiskPart can execute many operations via different command lines, here we concluded a few of them to help you managing hard disk.

Windows Hard Drive Format Utility

To create a partition: (Open Command Prompt and hit Enter each time.)

• diskpart
• list disk
• select disk 1
• create primary partition size=10000mb (or more)
• format fs=ntfs (or other file system)
• assign letter=D (or other drive)
• exit

More details about extending or deleting partitions with CMD, you may refer to Manage Partitions with CMD.

You may also run DiskPart command to perform the following operations:

1. #1. Format or clean a disk (as shown on this page in Fix 1)
2. #2. Show hidden files using CMD
3. #3. Check and fix disk error using cmd
4. #4. Recover deleted files using command prompt
5. #5. Fix and repair hard drive errors using CHKDSK command

2. How long does DiskPart take to format?

Being it similar to the Windows formatting feature, you can always apply DiskPart format command to format a hard drive within minutes or half an hour, depending on the hard drive capacity and used space on it.

As estimated, to do a 'full' format on a 1TB hard disk in Windows, it will take a long time, like 2- hours, and over a USB 2.0 connection, it may take a day!

If it gets stuck or takes forever to format a hard drive using DiskPart format cmd, refer to Hard Drive Takes Forever to Format Fixes for help.

3. What is the command to format a partition with the NTFS file systems?

Follow the process to format a partition with NTFS file system:

1. 1. Right-click Windows icon, 'Search', and type 'CMD' and then right-click Command Prompt to select 'Open as Administrator'
2. 2. Type 'list disk' into the command prompt without quotes and hit Enter.
3. 3. Type 'select disk 1' without quotes and hit Enter. (Replace 1 with the disk number of your own hard drive.)
4. 4. Type 'list volume' without quotes and hit Enter.
5. 5. Type 'select volume 1' without quotes and hit Enter. (Replace 1 with the target partition number on your drive.)
6. 6. Type 'format d: /fs: ntfs quick' without quotes and hit Enter. (Replace d: with the drive letter of your target partition.)
7. 7. Type 'exit' and hit Enter to close the command prompt.

For further resolutions, check the How-To page or use the Search option on our website - https:www.easeus.com to find more exact solutions bases on your issues.