Hello, I have an issue in formatting an old hard drive in XP.
I took out an old SATA HD from a laptop. This had Windows system on it. so I looked up on line instructions on how to format it. This is how I did it. I connected the HD to a Windows XP computer via a USB-SATA cable. I can see the HD in my computer and can see it's contents. In Computer management, left clicked Disk management, this showed in the right panel the list of drives on the computer, C: system drive of the present computer, D: recovery partition of this computer, and E: the HD I am trying to format. The table below showed Disk 0: Basic with C: D: and unallocated space. In the list, I right clicked on E: and slelected "delete partition". That delelted the existing partition. Now the table showed the Disk 1 as unallocated space. Then I right clicked the unallocated space and selelcted create new partition. It asked if I want Primary or extended, the logical was greyed out. I selelcted Extended (because I want to use this disk just for data and not system). According to all the instructions I have seen, the windows is supposed to give me opportunity to format the drive at this point and ask me if I want NTFS and give me chance to name this drive. However, the next message I saw was "the partition has been completed. Click finish" which I did. The disk disappeared from the list but is present in the table. I see in the table: Disk 1 as Basic, online, extended partition, free space 298GB. I no longer see the HD in "MY computer" any more.
At this point, I understand the disk is not formatted and since it does not have a drive letter, it is not seen in the computer. Right clicking the Disk 1 in the table gives me only the following options to click on: new logical drive, delete partition, help. There is no option of "format" or "change drive letter & paths" or "assign drive letter". Since the HD does not show in the "my computer", I cannot use the right click and format option from there either. I have already deleted and recreated partition twice thinking it may change some thing.
How do I finish formatting this drive to make it usable? Thanks for the help.
I took out an old SATA HD from a laptop. This had Windows system on it. so I looked up on line instructions on how to format it. This is how I did it. I connected the HD to a Windows XP computer via a USB-SATA cable. I can see the HD in my computer and can see it's contents. In Computer management, left clicked Disk management, this showed in the right panel the list of drives on the computer, C: system drive of the present computer, D: recovery partition of this computer, and E: the HD I am trying to format. The table below showed Disk 0: Basic with C: D: and unallocated space. In the list, I right clicked on E: and slelected "delete partition". That delelted the existing partition. Now the table showed the Disk 1 as unallocated space. Then I right clicked the unallocated space and selelcted create new partition. It asked if I want Primary or extended, the logical was greyed out. I selelcted Extended (because I want to use this disk just for data and not system). According to all the instructions I have seen, the windows is supposed to give me opportunity to format the drive at this point and ask me if I want NTFS and give me chance to name this drive. However, the next message I saw was "the partition has been completed. Click finish" which I did. The disk disappeared from the list but is present in the table. I see in the table: Disk 1 as Basic, online, extended partition, free space 298GB. I no longer see the HD in "MY computer" any more.
At this point, I understand the disk is not formatted and since it does not have a drive letter, it is not seen in the computer. Right clicking the Disk 1 in the table gives me only the following options to click on: new logical drive, delete partition, help. There is no option of "format" or "change drive letter & paths" or "assign drive letter". Since the HD does not show in the "my computer", I cannot use the right click and format option from there either. I have already deleted and recreated partition twice thinking it may change some thing.
How do I finish formatting this drive to make it usable? Thanks for the help.
