How do I format and partition my new external hard dis ? Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.

As Leo! Hardware Dis s and Mass Storage Dis Partitioning As Leo! Hardware Dis s and Mass Storage External Drives Partitioning and formatting a new dis , internal or external, is often not neede d but it's easy to do using Windows built-in dis manager. by Leo A. Notenboom, 2008 I have a new 500GB external USB hard drive and would li e to format and partitio n it. How do I do that? Well, to begin with, you may not need to. Most come pre-formatted as a single pa rtition. But if it didn't, or if you don't li e the default setup, changing it is easy. A nd of course you'll want to do this before you load that dis up with data. As I said, most external hard drives come ready to use. Just plug 'em in, let Wi ndows discover it, and *poof* there's another drive on your system ready to use. Most will come pre-configured as a single unlabelled partition using the FAT32 f ilesystem. If that's what you have, and if that's what you want, you can stop reading now, since you're done. You need do nothing more. "... most external hard drives come ready to use." If you want to change what you have, the tools you need to do so are already rig ht there in Windows. Start by right clic ing on My Computer and then clic ing on Manage. In the resul ting application window, clic on Dis Management in the left hand pane. You sho uld see something similar to this: At the top you'll see all the logical dis s on your system listed alphabetically by label by default. Below that you'll see a graphical representation of all th e physical dis drives nown to your system. If a physical drive has more than o ne partition those partitions will be shown together on the single physical driv e. In this example, my drive "E:" is an external USB drive. It happens to be my bac up drive where nightly bac ups are stored. Remove the Existing Partition Let's assume for a moment that I'm unhappy with the current configuration of the partitions on my external drive and want to change it. My first step would be t o remove the existing partition. You need to right clic on the drive in the lower pane, and you should see this menu: Important: the next step will delete everything on the drive. Everything. Ma e s ure this is what you want before proceeding. Clic on Delete Partition The representation of the drive should change from "Healthy" to "Unallocated". Partition The Drive Right clic on the drive again, and the option that was once "Delete Partition" is now "New Partition". Clic on that to set up your new partition. You'll then be as ed to select "Primary" or "Extended" partition. Primary is suf ficient unless you plan to put more than 4 partitions on this hard dis . You'll then also be as ed how much of the space to allocate for the new partition you'r e creating. Typically, I recommend simply allocating the entire space to a single partition. You can, if you li e, allocate less than the maximum space to the partition you 're creating now so that you have room for additional partitions on the same har d dis . Remember that each partition, once formatted, will appear as its own log ical dis (C:, D:, E: and so on.)

You'll then be as ed about formatting, which I'll cover below. Once you've formatted the new partition, it'll appear as "Healthy", and any left over space will continue to display "Unallocated". You can then repeat this part itioning process on that unallocated space until your entire drive has been allo cated. Format Your Drive Assuming that partitioning has been performed above, or you don't want to change the partitioning of your drive, the next thing to change would be the format of the drive. Important: formatting a drive will delete everything on the drive. Everything. M a e sure this is what you want before proceeding. Right clic on the drive that you wish to format, clic on the Format item, pres s OK on the dire warning, and you'll get a dialog similar to this: Let's loo at each of those options: Volume Label - is the name that will appear when the logical dis is displayed i n Windows Explorer, in File selection dialog boxes and in other situations. It's a convenient way to identify dis s by name rather than only by letter. The labe l is an attribute of the drive, so particularly on removable drives the label st ays the same no matter what machine you plug it into, or what drive letter it ge ts assigned. File System - I recommend NTFS unless the drive is going to be used by older ver sions of Windows, or by non-Windows systems. There's debate as to whether NTFS i s faster (I thin it is), but it also supports additional security features li e file permissions, and can typically ma e more efficient use of larger dis s. Allocation unit size - can be left at "Default". Perform a Quic format - for the type of format we're doing here, I actually rec ommend leaving this unchec ed. A quic format only writes the bare minimum of in formation to establish the dis 's new configuration. If the dis has been in use for a while, that's fine and is what I typically recommend. However, when going through the effort of formatting a new dis I suggest using this opportunity to have the format process actually write the entire drive. It may ta e a while. Enable file and folder compression - I have mixed feelings about this. The overh ead of compressing and decompressing files is no longer significant with today's processor speeds. However, I have concerns about data recovery if the dis ever experiences an issue. My concerns may not be valid, but ultimately, I never run with compression on any of my hard dis s, preferring instead to compress the in dividual files as appropriate instead. So many file formats, li e most audio and video files, are already compressed that the compression offered by the file sy stem is often negligible. I leave this unchec ed. That's it. Press OK and after a period of time you'll have a formatted, ready-to -use dis . A Word on Dis Partitioning Utilities As you've seen, the process we used above to adjust the existing partitions on t he hard dis involve deleting the entire contents of the dis , changing the part ition structure, and then placing the dis bac into service. It may not have to be that way. There are third party utilities such as Partition Magic or Acronis Dis Director that will allow you to resize partitions without first erasing the dis . Of cou rse I still recommend a full bac up of the dis you're about to modify first, bu t these can be useful utilities. Here's why I'm not suggesting them: how often do you really repartition a dis ? In my mind it's much more common to do it once, and then leave the configuration alone. A change is typically so infrequent that the utilities - however good th ey are - often aren't worth the effort. However, that's obviously a decision you can ma e on your own, since it's a clas sic time / money tradeoff. But particularly for a new dis just being placed into service, there's no need for advanced management tools. Once it's empty, and while it's empty, it's a per fect time to perform any partitioning or formatting or the li e using Windows ow

n built-in tools. Article C3447 - July 17, 2008 Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he was required to ta e a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed. After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started As Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo. Not what you needed? You may also be interested in: FREE Newsletter! Join over 90,000 fol s just li e you and get the FREE twice-wee ly As Leo! News letter Subscribe now and get a free copy of my free eboo : Internet Safety - Keeping Yo ur Computer Safe on the Internet Your Email: I respect your privacy. I will NEVER sell, rent or share your email address. Tha t's more than a policy, it's my personal guarantee! My Privacy Pledge. Find out more (including exclusive subscriber-only bonuses) What is dis partitioning? Partitions are ways of treating a single hard dis as if it were many. We'll loo at why, how and when you might want to partition yo ur hard drive. Can I ma e my C: partition bigger by ta ing space from D:? Hard dis s can be div ided into multiple partitions, each showing up as a different drive. Changing th e layout of partitions requires special tools. I can't format my hard drive - it eep telling me "volume is in use by another p rocess" -- why? "Volume in use" when trying to format most commonly means you're trying to format and erase the entire dis that has Windows on it. Recent Comments 74 Comments Than s Leo!... We're waiting your next tips. Bon courage. Posted by: Galih at January 8, 2012 5:27 PM Is it possible for me to partition my drive,and still eep the data on it intact ?I just got a new one,and I've bac ed up all my computer data on it.Now I reali ze I should have partitioned it! Some partition management software will preserve data for some operations, but i f you're creating a new partition I now of no tools that let you say "put this data on the new partition, leave this data on the old partition". 17-Mar-2012 Posted by: ashna at March 12, 2012 8:01 AM Than s, Leo. Your instructions were clear and easy to understand! What a big hel p...I appreciate your time and expertise! Posted by: Kay Ruddoc at May 6, 2012 2:33 PM waw... than s a lot .. that was REALLY helpful i thin i am going to boo mar this site .. than s Leo Posted by: Sam at June 2, 2012 10:38 AM Leo ! Can my new WD 1 TB Extnal be partitioned into 150+300+150+300 GB and 30 gb freespace. HOW TO DO IT ??? Posted by: Muneerudeen at June 13, 2012 2:16 AM See all 74 comments... Post a comment on "How do I format and partition my new external hard dis ?": Name: (Required - will be included when your comment is published.)

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