How to Reformat a Disk Drive

A hard disk drive is often shortened to just disk drive. These drives may be formatted when the drive malfunctions. Common malfunctions are hard disk files being inaccessible and whole sections of hard disk files come up missing. Formatting the drive will fix these errors, but will remove all information stored on the hard disk. Reformatting a disk drive is when the error appears again and the disk drive needs formatting to rid itself of these malfunctions and errors.

Instructions

1. Click on the "Start" button to open the Start Menu. This is the blue circle in the far left corner of the monitor's screen.

2. Click "Control Panel" in the right panel of the Start Menu.

3. Click on "System and Security" inside "Control Panel." Next, click "Administrative Tools." Double-click "Computer Management."

4. Insert your computer's administrative password. This step only pertains to computers that have an administrative password. If your computer does not have an administrative password, skip this step and move to the next one.

5. Click on "Disk Management." It is under "Storage" in the left side of the menu. A list of all storage drives plugged into the machine will appear. Right-click the disk drive and click "Format."

6. Click "OK" at the bottom of the screen to reformat the drive using the default settings. Click "OK" on the next screen to format the disk drive.

Tips & Warnings

• Reformatting a hard disk drive will delete all information stored on it.

References

• Microsoft: Windows 7 - Create and Format a Hard Disk Partition