HELP with partitioning/format a hard drive from windows 7!
How do you partition a hard drive from windows 7? Device Manager shows the new hard drive but Computer nor explorer doesn't show it. I was hoping it would so I could partition it. But right now I need help figuring out how to partition/format the hard drive.
Edit:
LOL, it was too easy. Go to:
-Control Panel
-System and Security
-Create and format Hard Disk Parition
Once I clicked on the above a popup screen called Initialize Disk came up with the option for
MBR (Master Boot Record)
GPT (Guid Partition Table): This may not be recognized by all previous versions of Windows. Recommended for disk larger then 2TB or disks using Itanium-based computers.
Honestly I am not sure what they mean so I will look them up. But if you have an idea please feel free to tell me
.
Once that is done it will take you to Disk Management and you will see the new disk as Disk 1. Right click in the unallocated portion of Disk 1 and select the partition type. If you are simply adding another hard drive then select Simple Volume. However, you can click on each option to get an idea of what it means. (Simple, Spanned, Stripped, Mirror, Raid 5 Volumes).
When you are asked about Allocation unit size you can read this
link for more details about it. The gist of it is that you can allocation a certain unit size where data is stored. So if you have 1K of data it will be saved on 4K of HD space. To some this is a waste of HD space. Others believe that it can decrease access time if a lower size is used.
Should you perform a quick format for a new hard drive that hasn't been formatted yet?
If you select the Perform a quick format check box, the files are removed from the disk but the disk is not scanned for bad sectors. Use this option only if this disk has been previously formatted and you are sure the disk is not damaged.
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