Formatting an External Hard Drive in XP

Have an External Hard Drive you wish to Format?

Warning: Formatting a hard drive permanently removes all files, so you should not format the drive if you have saved anything on it (without making a copy of the files first). If you don't want to overwrite the data, you should convert the drive to NTFS instead.


Note--Make sure Your External HD is in the Enclosure!


1.Go to Start, then My Documents--choose Manage

2. Under Storage, click Disk Management

3.If the Initialize and Convert Disk Wizard appears, click Next. If the wizard does not appear, skip to step 7.

4.On the Select Disks to Initialize page, click Next.

5.On the Select Disks to Convert page, click Next

6.On the Completing the Initialize and Convert Disk Wizard page, click Finish

7.Right-click your external drive (which will probably be drive E or drive F), and then click Format.

8.In the Format dialog box, type a name for your external hard drive, such as Backup Drive. Then, click OK.

9.Click OK again

There---A Piece of Cake!!!