How to format a Hard Drive in Windows 7
Description: This guide shows you how to format a hard drive (external or thumb/flash drive) using the built in format functions in Windows 7.
***NOTE THIS WILL ERASE EVERYTHING ON THE DRIVE***
- Click the Start button, right-click Computer and select Manage.
- On the left side, choose Disk Management.
- Right-click the drive that needs to be formatted and choose Format.
- Type the name of the drive you would like next to Volume label:. Also choose which file format you would like to use. If you plan on transferring this drive between Apple computer and Microsoft computers, I would suggest formatting to FAT32. If you are only using a Windows machine, you may choose NTFS. Also make sure that Perform a quick format is checked so you don't have to wait as long for the format process. Leave the Allocation size at Default.
- Press OK on the next screen.
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