Formatting Windows Hard Drive - How It Works

Under Windows, formatting a hard drive is very simple. However, you can only format a secondary or external hard drive and not the one that is still running Windows. Also, you should be aware that formatting irrevocably deletes all data, so you should back up important files beforehand.

What to do to format a hard drive?

When you format a hard drive, it is effectively reset to factory defaults. You can revoke this process only with difficulty. Therefore, you should carefully view and back up all files before formatting the hard drive. Also, you cannot format your primary hard drive that has Windows installed on it. In addition, you have the option to change the file system.

Format Second Hard Drive

1. Back up all the data that you do not want to lose and that is located on the disk to be formatted.
2. Go to My Computer in File Explorer, where all hard drives are displayed.
3. Right-click the hard drive that you want to format. Click in the context menu on the item "Format".
4. Now a new window appears, by clicking on "Restore device defaults", you can make further settings
5. Do not select the quick format, if you want to delete all the data permanently and irrevocably, because this will only delete the references to the files, but not the files themselves.
6. Click "Start", if you are quite sure that you want to delete the data permanently. The subsequent process may take a little time.
7. Alternatively, formatting is also possible via the Run dialog by running the command "diskmgmt.msc", selecting the desired disk and clicking "Format" in the context menu.