How To Partition and format a Hard Drive in Windows 7

After installing a hard drive, you must partition it (and then format it) before it can be used by Windows 7.

How To Partition a Hard Drive in Windows 7

1. Open Windows 7 Disk Management from the Computer Management utility.
   
   Note: You can also open Disk Management from the Command Prompt in Windows 7 but doing so from Computer Management is probably easier.
    
2. As Disk Management opens, you should be prompted with an Initialize Disk window advising that "you must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it."
   
   Choose MBR if your new hard drive is smaller than 2 terabytes or GPT if it's larger than 2 terabytes. Then click OK.
   
   Note: Don't worry just yet if you don't see this window. We'll know in the next step if something could be wrong with the physical hard drive installation.
    
3. With Disk Management open, locate the hard drive you want to partition from the graphical drive map on the bottom half of the screen.
   
   If the hard drive is brand new, it will probably be on a dedicated row labeled Disk 1, or some number other than zero, and say Unallocated.
   
   If the space you want to partition is part of physical hard drive that is already partially partitioned, the Unallocated space will be next to that space.
   
   Note: You may need to maximize the Computer Management window to see all the hard drives on the bottom. An unpartitioned drive will not show up in the drive list at the top of the screen.
   
   Important: Don't see the hard drive you want to partition? Look again, but if you're sure the hard drive you've installed is not there, there may have been an issue when you installed it. Shut down your PC and check to see that the hard drive is installed properly.
    
4. Once you locate the drive, right-click somewhere on the Unallocated space and choose New Simple Volume....
   
   The "New Simple Volume Wizard" should appear.
           
5. Click Next >.
    
6. In the Specify Volume Size step, click Next > to confirm the size of the partition.
   
   The size displayed in the Simple volume size in MB: field should equal the size listed as the Maximum disk space in MB:. This means that you're creating a partition that equals the size of the entire hard drive or unpartitioned space.
   
   Note: If you want to create multiple partitions in this unpartitioned space, change the Simple volume size in MB to the size of the partition you'd like to create and repeat this and the following steps to create another, or several more, partitions.
    
7. The next step, called Assign Drive Letter or Path, does just that, since your new partition will need a drive letter.
   
   Windows 7 automatically chooses the next available drive letter (skipping A and B) so if that drive letter is OK with you, just click Next >.
   
   Important: It's best to commit to this drive letter. Deciding later to change a drive's letter in Windows 7 can cause problems if programs are installed on the drive.
    
8. Next, Windows 7 gives you the option to complete a format of the drive immediately after partitioning it. Since this tutorial is focused at partitioning a hard drive, let's wait to format the drive until we're done creating the partition.
   
   Choose Do not format this volume and then click Next >.
    
9. The Completing the New Simple Volume Wizard page displays a quick summary of the partition options you chose.
   
   Check that the settings shown are similar to this:
    
   • Volume Type: Simple Volume
   • Disk selected: Disk 1
   • Volume size: 2045 MB
   • Drive letter or path: E:
   • File system: None
   • Allocation unit size: Default
   Note: The Disk selected, Volume size, and Drive letter or path values will differ depending on your specific setup. File system: None just means that you've decided not to format the drive at this time.
    
10. Click Finish to begin Windows 7's partition of the hard drive.
    
    Your cursor will turn busy for a few to several seconds. Once your new drive letter (E: in my example) appears in the drive listing at the top of the Disk Management screen, the partition of the hard drive is complete!
     
11. At this point, Disk Management prompts Windows Explorer to open your new drive.
    
    However, since the new drive is not yet formatted, Windows Explorer gives you the following alert: "You need to format the disk in drive E: before you can use it. Do you want to format it?"
12.  choose Format.... A "Format [drive letter]:" window should appear.
    
    Warning: Obviously it's very, very important to choose the correct drive to format in Windows 7:
     
    • If you're formatting a drive that has data on it, double-check that it's the correct drive by looking at the drive letter and then checking in Windows Explorer that it is in fact the correct drive.
       
    • If you're formatting a new drive, the drive letter assigned should be unfamiliar to you and the File System will probably be listed as RAW.
13. In the Volume label: textbox, either give a name to the drive or leave the name as is. If this is a new drive, Windows 7 will assign the volume label New Volume.
    
    I recommend giving a name to the drive so it's easier to identify in the future. For example, if you're using this drive to store movies, name the volume Movies.
     
14. For File system: choose NTFS unless you have a specific need to choose another file system.
    
    NTFS is always the best file system option to use in Windows 7 unless you have a specific need to choose FAT32. Other FAT file systems are only available as options on drives 2GB and smaller.
     
15. Set the Allocation unit size: set to Default unless there's a specific reason to customize it. It's not common to set a custom allocation unit size when formatting a hard drive in Windows 7.
     
16. Windows 7 might suggest that you Perform a quick format by checking this option by default but I recommend unchecking the box so a standard format is done.
    
    In a standard format, each sector on the hard drive is checked for errors and a one-pass write-zero is also performed. A quick format skips the bad sector search and basic data sanitization.
    
    So while a quick format will format the hard drive considerably faster than a standard format, the benefits usually outweigh the short-term cost (your time) of the full format.
     
17. The Enable file and folder compression option is probably unchecked by default and I recommend keeping it that way.
    
    File and folder compression isn't usually necessary in today's world of incredibly large hard drives but feel free to enable it if you think you might use the feature.
     
18. Click OK at the bottom of the window.
     
19. Click OK to the "Formatting this volume will erase all data on it. Back up any data you want to to keep before formatting. Do you want to continue?" message.
     
20. The hard drive format will begin. You can keep track of the drive format by watching the Formatting: xx% progress in the Status field.
    
    Note: Formatting a hard drive in Windows 7 could take a very long time if the drive is large and/or slow. A small 2GB hard drive might only take several seconds to format while a 2TB drive could take considerably longer depending on the speed of the hard drive and the computer as a whole.
     
21. The format is complete when the Status changes to Healthy, which will happen a few seconds after the format counter reaches 100%.
    
    Windows 7 does not otherwise notify you that the drive format is complete.
     
22. That's it! You've just formatted a hard drive in Windows 7 and you can now use the new drive to store files, install programs, backup data... whatever you want.
    
    Note: If you created multiple partitions on this physical hard drive, you can now return to Step 3 and repeat these steps, formatting the additional drive(s).