Today Windows users only need to worry about for­mat­ting a hard drive in ex­cep­tion­al cases. Internal and external hard drives are already formatted and equipped with a special file system, such as NTFS, in the factory. Nev­er­the­less, in practice there are sit­u­a­tions in which for­mat­ting a hard drive is useful and necessary.

For­mat­ting a hard drive – when is it necessary?

For­mat­ting is necessary to operate a hard drive that doesn’t have a file system. There is also no getting around the for­mat­ting of a hard drive if you are planning to change file systems. If you plan on switching from the file system FAT32 to NTFS, you will be able to save large files over 4GB on a hard drive and benefit from increased data security, amongst other things.

You may consider switching from NFTS to FAT32 if you want greater mobility and the best possible cross-platform com­pat­i­bil­i­ty during data exchange. FAT32 hard drives can be read by most hardware in the home, such as media receivers or smart TVs. A smooth cross-platform data exchange is guar­an­teed as Apple’s Mac computers can handle the FAT32 for­mat­ting of external hard drives without any ad­di­tion­al tools.

A freshly formatted hard drive is also a good basis for a new in­stal­la­tion of an operating system that is guar­an­teed to be virus-free and run smoothly. You can also opt for a com­plete­ly new in­stal­la­tion, including the for­mat­ting of the system hard drive, during an upgrade, e. g., from Windows 7 to Windows 10.

With regards to data security, for­mat­ting is only rec­om­mend­ed to a limited extent. Special software can, under certain cir­cum­stances, restore data that normal users can no longer see or find due to the for­mat­ting. If you want to sell a used hard drive that still contains sensitive data (e.g., con­fi­den­tial customer and online banking data), you should use special deletion tools. They overwrite data multiple times and comply with generally binding security standards.

You can use standard Windows tools to format internal and external hard drives. The in­di­vid­ual steps are explained using Windows 10 as an example but are very similar in Windows 7 and 8. If you want to find out about the most common file systems for for­mat­ting disks, look at our file systems overview which contains all the in­for­ma­tion you need to know.

For­mat­ting in Windows Explorer

Note

If all your data is lost during for­mat­ting, it will no longer be possible for you to access your data normally!

Image: Formatting hard drives in Windows Explorer
For­mat­ting process in Windows Explorer

After opening Windows Explorer with the key com­bi­na­tion [Windows] + [E], you must complete the following steps:

  1. In the nav­i­ga­tion area on the left in Explorer: click on “This PC”.
  2. A list of the available hard drives will appear: right-click on the icon of the data medium that you want to format.
  3. After the context menu opens: right-click on “Format”.
  4. Select the file system and then click on “Start” to start the for­mat­ting.

As standard, Windows activates “Quick Format” which creates the new file system. If you uncheck the box, more complex for­mat­ting will be carried out. The hard drive will also be searched for faulty sectors. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly rec­om­mend­ed for old hardware or hardware that hasn’t been used for a long time. In addition, with the Normal Format the par­ti­tions will be over­writ­ten with zeroes which makes restoring data even more difficult.

For­mat­ting in Disk Man­age­ment

Disk Man­age­ment is a Windows system wizard which, amongst other things, formats hard drives and can split drives into par­ti­tions. It can be called up as follows:

  1. Press the key com­bi­na­tion [Windows] + [R].
  2. Enter “diskmgmt.msc”.
  3. Click “OK”.
Image: Calling up Disk Management
Calling up Windows Disk Man­age­ment

Windows 10 users can also access the Disk Man­age­ment by clicking on the Window icon on the bottom left of the taskbar. When you right-click on the Windows icon, a menu will open and then you simply click on “Disk Man­age­ment”:

Image: Calling up Disk Management through the taskbar
Calling up Disk Man­age­ment through the Windows 10 taskbar

After reading in the connected hard disks, the disk man­age­ment opens:

Image: Formatting in Disk Management
Process of a hard disk for­mat­ting in Windows Disk Man­age­ment

You can format a hard drive in Disk Man­age­ment as follows:

  1. Select the disk and then right-click.
  2. Click on “Format”.
  3. Select the file system and click on “OK”.

In Step 3 you can also decide whether you want to carry out a Quick Format (box checked) or a Normal Format with the deleting and over­writ­ing of data (box unchecked).

For­mat­ting a system hard drive

The for­mat­ting of a per­ma­nent­ly installed internal system hard drive is a special case that differs from the processes already described. With this process, you can make un­for­mat­ted or already formatted hard drives bootable, assign a new file system and install the desired operating system.

To do this, you will need a special in­stal­la­tion medium, such as a bootable Windows DVD or a bootable USB stick with Windows. The for­mat­ting also works with the Windows Media Creation Tool which can create an in­stal­la­tion medium for Windows 10. The actual for­mat­ting is done in a similar way with all in­stal­la­tion media.

For­mat­ting a system hard drive with Windows (7, 8 and 10)

System hard drives are formatted during the boot phase. The boot order in BIOS must be con­fig­ured so that the in­stal­la­tion medium is first iden­ti­fied during the booting and so that the PC starts from there. If all the re­quire­ments have been met, the for­mat­ting is done in several steps:

If the in­stal­la­tion medium is active, it will first guide you through a few in­ter­me­di­ate steps (e.g., input of the Windows license key, agreement to the license terms). Afterward, the Windows Setup starts an in­stal­la­tion and for­mat­ting wizard. In the “Which type of in­stal­la­tion do you want?” menu, you must select the option “Custom: Install Windows only”:

Image: Select installation type for the formatting
“Custom in­stal­la­tion” with for­mat­ting options

Another window will open. If the hard drive has not yet been used and has not been pre­vi­ous­ly formatted, a basic par­ti­tion­ing must be carried out. Click on “New” to do this:

Image: Partitioning of a drive
Par­ti­tion­ing and al­lo­ca­tion of storage space in Windows Setup

If there are already for­mat­tings available and par­ti­tions are already displayed, you can click on “Format” directly:

Image: Formatting the primary partition
List of the available hard drives in Windows Setup

Windows always reserves a storage area when creating a system hard drive (“Drive 0 Partition 1, Type: System”) that cannot be accessed by the user. The custom for­mat­ting is done in the area marked in blue (“Drive 0 Partition 2, Type: Primary”).

If the system has several hard drives, you must select one. The system hard drive is usually “Disk 0” or “Drive 0”. After the final con­fir­ma­tion prompt has been confirmed the for­mat­ting starts. Once the process has been completed, the computer can either been turned off or restarted (e.g., by pressing the reset button).

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