I have an external hard drive that I want to reformat. When I plug it in, three letters come up as if I plugged in three different drives. I am somewhat familiar with drive partitions; I know what they are but I don't know how to create or remove them. I would like to reformat the drive so it acts like one drive. Is there an easy way to do this in Windows XP without a third party software? Like I said I don't care about the data currently on the drive.
2007-12-21 04:26:42 · 6 answers · asked by Sloth 3 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Other - Hardware
Balleralert: I was given the drive, so I have no idea how it was partitioned in the first place.
Meister: My problem is I don't know what to search for. Maybe a key word would help?
Stuart: Like I said, the drive has three letters.
So I went to disk management and deleted each partition and then created a new partition which formatted the drive. Problem solved. Thanks dattenpatel. You didn't tell me how to do it, but you gave me the nudge in the right direction that I needed.
2007-12-21 04:45:33 · update #1
Stuart: I apologise; after rereading your answer it seems that you understood what I was asking after all.
2007-12-23 15:18:21 · update #2
Pull up a command prompt, or DOS prompt.
At the C:\> prompt, type FORMAT D: /s
(Whatever the first drive letter on the external drive is should be where the D is)
It'll warn you that all files will be lost. Type Y.
After the format is complete, it should have deleted the partitions.
2007-12-21 04:31:41 · answer #1 · answered by Stuart 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Partition Magic is a great software for changing partitions. All you opt to do is format considered one of various. this could be worry-free till you're having a controversy you probably did no longer point out. purely mount the partition so the device assigns it a stress letter. pass to My workstation (or workstation on Vista and seven), top click on the stress letter the place the partition is fastened, and choose format. this could format in basic terms that partition, no longer the finished stress. of direction, you are able to continuously have an as much as date backup of the entire device in the past appearing this style of activity - purely in case.
2016-11-04 05:30:16 · answer #2 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm not too familiar with external hard drives, but what utility did you use to partition it in the first place? I'd imagine you have to use a similar technique to un-partition it...
2007-12-21 04:29:17 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
usually with hard drives whether external or internal a window pops up saying "searching for software" " please pop in CD" what I do is "x" all that out and go directly to the manufacturers website. put in the model number and find the downloadable software. When you install the software it will have the option of erasing all data. hope this helps.
2007-12-21 04:36:29 · answer #4 · answered by oscar a 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
dude go to my compter option and then right click it many options lik search etc will popup click on manage option and then disk management rest u wil do it and JUST REMEMBER TO KEEP UR EXTERNAL HARD DISK DRIVE PLUGGED ON TO UR COMPUTER
2007-12-21 04:31:27 · answer #5 · answered by dattenpatel 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Grab a freeware utility to do it, there's a bunch out there. Google it.
2007-12-21 04:30:07 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋