...will it erase the Western Digital software that came with it? It has 35GB of space taken up, by what I am assuming is protected disk space, which is necessary for installing drivers and backup software made by WD. If I reformat the hard drive will it reformat all that information too? Obviously, this question is gearing towards people who have recently purchased a Western Digital external harddrive.
2006-08-19 09:32:12 · 5 answers · asked by Justin G 3 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Add-ons
Okay...if you don't own this type of hard drive don't answer this question. This situation is different from most hard drive formatting situations because I think the software files are partitioned.
2006-08-19 09:45:48 · update #1
when you do the reformat, you will be prompted as to which partition you want to reformat. the primary partition would be the bigger of the two as that is where the o/s with the master boot record resides. the partition with the WD programs on it will not be affected
2006-08-19 11:56:23 · answer #1 · answered by medic391 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You pretty much answered your own question. IF the 35Gb is a partition then formatting the free disk space will not affect it. It should not be an issue to FDISK all the partitions and format the complete drive into what ever chunks you want IF the drive will be used on a system running XP.
The BIOS in older systems could not read that much disk space and disk manufactures would use software to allow the disk space to accessed. Since WD does not know what kind of system you bought the drive to put in, they put the software on the drive so even an older system running Win95 can use it. If the system the drive is going in was built in the last 3-5 years, the BIOS will see the full drive.
2006-08-19 10:26:41 · answer #2 · answered by TARFU 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I believe you are referring to the unallocated partition which would contain the WD software on the harddrive. If you reformat, I believe it will format only the allowable partitions and leave the unallocated space alone. This is the reason when you format, you do not get the full 500 gb, but may be around 450 gb. I hope this helps in answering your question.
2006-08-19 09:50:04 · answer #3 · answered by Grasshopper 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
If you reformat a drive the drive will be reformatted, yes. That means everything is wiped off of it.
2006-08-19 09:40:56 · answer #4 · answered by ranger beethoven 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Hard drives really don't need any drivers to work, most a plug and play.
2006-08-19 09:38:32 · answer #5 · answered by shmifty__14 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋