how do i format my hard drive

F5ing · 21 Jul 2012

Your Disk Management screenshot shows it is not initialized. Try a right-click (where it says 'not initialized') and click on initialize.

JH17 · 21 Jul 2012

i have tried that but it comes up media is write protected

richc46 · 21 Jul 2012

If you have a Seven CD, boot from the CD and then while you install format. You must boot from the CD and not the installed OS.

Arc · 21 Jul 2012

JH17, are you able to remove the case of the external drive and connect it directly to the sata ports of the computer as it is an internal disk ?

If so, you can use either TestDisk or MiniTool Free Partition Manager Home Edition to salvage the partition table on it.

And, if you have an access to an older hardware , say a computer with USB2 or earlier ports, you mmay try the external there.

If the disk is not password protected (that I learned in a similar thread a couple of weeks ago) , might be the usb is not compatible there.

jumanji · 22 Jul 2012

Have a look at this thread write protected external sata drive

The third option of notsograymatter's post no. 2 resolved the issue for the OP. Try it.

JH17 · 22 Jul 2012

u mean like a windows 7 operating system disk or a recovery disk cause they r the only 2 i got

i cant take off the casing its like glue together or something ay there are no screw in the thing

i tried the third option like u said but i couldnt find some of the stuff was the thread u told me to look at from a differnt version of windows?

richc46 · 22 Jul 2012

richc46 said:

If you have a Seven CD, boot from the CD and then while you install format. You must boot from the CD and not the installed OS.

If you have, or can borrow (but must have your Product Key Number) you can install, if you boot from the CD and format, too. You must have an installation CD and not the CD that comes with the computer, when Seven is preinstalled.

F5ing · 22 Jul 2012

Arc has mentioned quite a few great suggestions. Did you try a bootable CD with:

Best Free Partition Manager Freeware and free partition magic for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista and Windows XP 32 bit & 64 bit. MiniTool Free Partition Manager Software Home Edition.

Or did you try the version that runs on Windows? You ought to try the bootable version to see how it sees the drive (without any interference from Windows).

If it still shows up as 'not initalized' when using the bootable Partition Wizard, boot back into Windows, open a command prompt and:

Type: diskpart > enter
Type: list disk > enter
Type: select disk # > enter (where # is the appropriate disk number)
Type: detail disk> enter

And give us a screenshot of the output so we can see all the details of that disk.

And if you're absolutely sure you've got the correct disk selected (you can do another list disk; the * on the left denotes the selected disk) and there are absolutely no files on it that you need, enter one more command in Diskpart:

Type: clean> enter

I think most of this has already been mentioned by Arc and maybe other posters, but I wanted to see if the output of detail disk reveals anything odd about your disk.

JH17 · 23 Jul 2012

nah i dont have the CD

when i type in detail disk it comes up that diskpart has stopped working
i m still tryna figure out the program u sent me the link too

Arc · 23 Jul 2012

JH17 can you get the external hdd out of its case, and connect it to the computers sata ports as it is an internal one ?

I doubt it is the probled due to the usb ports, most probably. The HDDs usb port is not being recognized by the computers input. Well that is a guess though.