On Windows 10, whenever you get a new hard drive, it's important to format it before you start dumping files. The reason is that you want to ensure that the drive is working correctly, completely clean, and free of malware or malicious code that may harm your installation and personal files.
And it's not just a good practice for new drives, but for used hard drives too (especially those previously connected to a different OS), as using the proper formatting, you can avoid issues and compatibility problems.
Jul 18, 2013 After purchasing a new hard drive or managing a corrupt one on an older Mac, you can install your current version of OS X even though you might not have a working Recovery option (on the drive. Click “Clone” to start the cloning process. The content of the USB drive will be overwritten and replaced with the clone of the boot drive. Booting from a USB Drive. Once you’ve installed macOS on a USB drive or cloned your hard drive to a USB drive, you will need to restart your computer and boot from the clone drive.
![Hard Hard](/uploads/1/2/6/3/126389278/484079308.png)
Basically, when you format a hard drive, you're deleting all the data residing on the storage, and you start clean with a compatible file system (including NTFS, FAT32, or exFAT), which in this case Windows 10 understands to read and write data.
There are many methods available to format a hard drive, but using Disk Management could be considered one of the best options for most users.
In this Windows 10 guide, we'll walk you through the steps to correctly format a traditional hard drive or Solid-State Drive (SSD), whether it already has a partition or it was never initialized.
How to format existing partition using Disk Management
If you have a hard drive already configured with a partition, you can just format the existing partition to erase its content and start fresh with a clean drive.
To format a partition using Disk Management, use these steps:
- Open Start.
- Search for Disk Management and click the top result to open the experience.
- Right-click the new hard drive and select the Format option.
- In the 'Value label' field, type a descriptive name for the drive.
- Use the 'File system' drop-down menu, and select NTFS (recommended for Windows 10).
- Use the 'Allocation unit size' drop-down menu, and select the Default option.
- Check the Perform a quick format option.Quick Tip: While performing a quick format wipes the drive faster, it doesn't check if the drive is damaged. On the other hand, when clearing the option, a full format will be performed, which not only wipes the drive clean, but it'll also check for bad sectors. It's an option that could take several hours, but it's a good practice to make sure the hard drive is in working conditions.
- Unless necessary, clear the Enable file and folder compression option.
- Click the OK button.
- Click the OK button again in the warning message.
![Install new hd mac Install new hd mac](/uploads/1/2/6/3/126389278/769381551.jpg)
Once you've completed the steps, the system will format the selected partition on the drive, and then you can start using it to store files.
How to create and format new partition using Disk Management
If you happen to have a hard drive that was never formatted, you'll need to initialize and create a new partition before you can format it.
Typically, you'll know when a hard drive doesn't have a partition, because it'll not appear in File Explorer, and on Disk Management, it'll appear as unallocated space.
To properly set up a blank hard drive, use these steps:
- Open Start.
- Search for Disk Management and click the top result to open the experience.
- Right-click the hard drive marked as 'Unknown' and 'Not Initialized,' and select Initialize Disk.
- Check the disk to initialize.
- Select the partition style:
- Master Boot Record (MBR) for hard drives smaller than 2TB in size.
- GUID Partition Table (GPT) for hard drives larger than 2TB in size.
- Click the OK button.
- Right-click the Unallocated space, and select the New Simply Value option.
- Click the Next button.
- Under the 'Simple volume size in MB' section, leave the default size if you're planning to use the entire hard drive to store files. Otherwise, specify the amount of space in megabytes that you want to allocate for the partition.
- Click the Next button.
- Use the 'Assign the following drive letter' drop-down menu to select a letter for the new hard drive.
- Click the Next button.
- Use the 'File system' drop-down menu, and select NTFS (recommended for Windows 10).
- Use the 'Allocation unit size' drop-down menu, and select the Default option.
- In the 'Value label' field, type a descriptive name for the drive.
- Check the Perform a quick format option.Quick Tip: If you prefer a full format, clear the quick format option. Just keep in mind that depending on the size of the drive, it can take hours to finish.
- Unless necessary, clear the Enable file and folder compression option.
- Click the Next button.
- Click the Finish button.
After completing the steps, the new hard drive will be initialized, partitioned, and properly formatted.
If you're having trouble using Disk Management to format a hard drive, because of data corruption or other severe issues, you can use the DiskPart command-line tool to fix the problem.
While we're focusing this guide on Windows 10, the steps outlined above will also work on Windows 8.1 and Windows 7.
More Windows 10 resources
For more helpful articles, coverage, and answers to common questions about Windows 10, visit the following resources:
Cross-check completeMicrosoft Flight Simulator 2020 system requirements: Can my PC run it?
Here are the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 PC requirements, internet speed requirements, and recommended hardware to explore its cloud-powered playground.
In the following, you'll learn a complete guide on how to install and set up a new regular hard drive or SSD on Windows 10/8/7 computer. If you are looking for a detailed tutorial, follow through this page to make the new drive work on your PC or laptop now.
PAGE CONTENT:
- Choose Your New Hard Drive
- Install A New Hard Drive/SSD
- Set Up New Disk and Make It Work in Windows 10/8/7
- FAQs About Install A New Hard Drive
Part 1. Choose Your New Hard Drive
If you have bought a new hard drive home, you may directly skip this part and jump to the next part to install the new hard drive or SSD.
If you haven't yet chosen a suitable drive, here below are some critical factors that may help you to decide which drive you would like to apply and install on your computer - a regular hard drive or an SSD disk.
1. The Price
If you don't plan to offer too much money on purchasing a new disk, a regular hard drive will be your best shot. Compared to a regular hard drive, we know that although recently the price of SSD disk indeed goes down, yet a solid-state disk is still charging regular people quite a bunch of bucks.
2. Your Purpose
Another important factor that may affect your decision is to make clear about your purpose of installing a new drive - to Migrate OS or Increase Storage Capacity.
If your computer system performance degrades, your system hard drive is old, you will need to upgrade the system disk. Your wise choice is to get a new SSD disk.
If your computer hard drive is out of space for saving data, you will need to add a second hard drive into your computer as a data drive. In this case, all you need is a regular hard drive with enough storage capacity.
3. The SATA Interface
Usually, the number of SATA Interfaces on the motherboard of your computer decides how many hard drives that you can add to your computer.
If your computer or laptop only has a pair of SATA interfaces, we are very sorry that you can only install only one disk. It means that you will need to purchase a new and bigger drive to install on your PC:
- For less money with a bigger space, a normal hard drive is your best choice.
- For faster speed with bigger space, an SSD is for you.
You may refer to this link for more details between SSD and HDD: HDD vs SSD.
Part 2. Install New Drive to PC or Laptop
After getting the new hard drive or new SSD home, you may now follow through this part to install it on your PC or laptop. https://potentmulti497.weebly.com/home-budget-software-for-mac.html.
Tools You Need
Here is a preparation list of tools that you will need for installing the new disk on your PC or laptop:
- A screwdriver
- The new drive - a regular hard drive or SSD
- A SATA connection cable
Steps to Install The New Drive
As you know that due to the different designs of desktop and laptop, the ways to install a new hard drive are also dissimilar to some extent. Follow through the detailed steps and install the new disk on your computer now.
Install New Drive on Desktop:
Here, we will take a 2TB hard drive as an example to show you the full process of installing it into a desktop computer.
Step 1. Shut down your computer and take the new drive out of the drive case or box.
Step 2. Prepare the new drive.
If it's a new hard drive, remove the screws on both sides of this disk.
And slide the drive bays into the screw holes on both sides of the new drive.
If it's an SSD, you will need to add a special mounting slot or a drive adapter to fit in 3.5 slots with screws like this:
Step 3. Remove the desktop computer case.
If it's locked by screws, remove them with your screwdriver.
Step 4. Slide your new drive into the computer case next to your old drive.
Step 5. Connect the new drive to your computer motherboard with the SATA cable and plug in a power cable to power on the drive.
Step 6. Close up your computer case and reboot it.
Install New Drive on Laptop:
As you know that some new laptops support to add two or more hard drives. However, most old laptops or some slim new laptops have only one hard drive bay.
If your laptop has another hard drive bay, you may easily insert the new drive in and make it work for you.
If your laptop has only one hard drive bay, you may have two options to install the new hard drive or SSD drive.
Option 1. Add 2nd HDD/SSD to Laptop By Replacing DVD or Blu-ray Drive
Here, we found a detailed and useful video tutorial that can help you effectively add the second hard drive or SSD to the laptop by replacing DVD or Blu-ray drive:
Source from: YouTube; By: Michael Cooper.
Option 2. Replace Old Drive with New Drive on Laptop
This video shows you the process to replace old laptop hard drive with an SSD:
As for the mentioned system clone tool, you may follow this link to download EaseUS Todo Backup for help.
Part 3. Set Up New Drive in Windows 10/8/7
After installing the new drive on your laptop, you may now move to the next part to set up your hard drive, making it work for you.
To save your time and energy, we'd like to recommend a reliable partition manager software to help you effectively initialize disk and partition hard drive with ease.
Go through the next two stages to make the new drive work for you:
# 1. Initialize Disk to MBR or GPT
Assume that the installed new drive is now unallocated on your computer or laptop, you'll need to initialize it first.
- Notice:
- If you plan to use the new disk to replace the system disk, you need to initialize it to the same partition style as your system disk.
EaseUS Partition Master will help you make your new hard drive readable in only 3 steps:
Step 1: Download the software
Download EaseUS Partition Master. Connect the hard drive or SSD to PC. https://potentmulti497.weebly.com/mac-change-app-icon-command-line.html.
Step 2: Initialize your HDD/SSD
Right-click the target HDD or SSD and select 'Initialize to MBR' or 'Initialize to GPT' accordingly.
Fig 1. Initialize to MBR:
Fig 2. Initialize to GPT:
Step 3: Apply the operation
A pending operation of initializing disk to MBR or GPT disk will be added. Execute the operation and click 'Apply'.
# 2. Make Use of The New Hard Drive
Installing Mac Software On New Hard Drive For Macbook Pro
If you plan to upgrade your system disk to the new drive, you may apply EaseUS Partition Master with its Migrate OS to HDD/SSD feature for help:
If you plan to make the second hard drive as a data disk, you may apply the partition hard drive feature in this software to create new partitions with ease:
Step 1: Launch EaseUS Partition Master
On the main window, right-click on the unallocated space on your hard drive or external storage device and select 'Create'.
Step 2: Adjust the new partition size, file system, label, etc.
External Hard Drive Mac To Windows
Set the size, partition label, drive letter, file system, etc. for the new partition and click 'OK' to continue.
Step 3: Confirm to create a new partition
Click on the 'Execute Operation' button and confirm to create a new partition by clicking 'Apply'.
FAQs About Install A New Hard Drive
Some of you may still have questions on installing a new hard drive to Desktop or Laptop. Here we gathered 5 top concerned questions and listed a brief answer to help you.
1. How do I set up a new hard drive?
First, use Disk Management or EaseUS Partition Master as shown in Part 3 on this page to initialize the new hard drive.
Next, you may use Disk Management or EaseUS Partition Master to create new partitions for usage.
For upgrading the system disk, you may follow Migrate OS to SSD as a guide.
2. How do I install a new hard drive in Windows 10?
The process is similar to the provided process on this page:
- Prepare new hard drive, screwdriver, SATA cable > Shut down the computer
- Remove computer or laptop case > Insert the new hard drive
- Reboot PC and initialize hard drive > Partition hard drive or migrate OS with EaseUS Partition Master.
For a detailed guide, follow up provided guidelines on this page.
3. How to format a new hard drive?
When you first install a new hard drive, if it's not initialized, the computer may not be able to detect it.
So your first job is to open Disk Management, locate and right-click on the new hard drive, select to initialize it. Then you can create partitions on it by right-clicking on the unallocated space and select to create new simple volumes.
After this, you can format the new hard drive by right-clicking to format the created partitions.
4. What to do after installing a new hard drive?
After you install a new hard drive, you may initialize it first in using Disk Management or partition manager software like EaseUS Partition Master recommended here. Mac os software update file location.
Then you need to re-think your purpose of installing this drive.
- To extend storage capacity, you can create new partitions on the drive and move your data to the new disk.
- To upgrade the system disk, you will need to transfer the system to the new disk by using EaseUS Partition Master or other system migration tools.
5. How to use the old hard drive as a second data drive?
- First, you need to install a new hard drive on your computer or laptop. For a detailed guide, follow-through steps in Part 2 on this page.
- Next, migrate the system to the new hard drive by following the system migration video on this page in Part 3.
- Last, Reboot computer from the new hard drive by changing BIOS boot sequence and then use Disk Management or EaseUS Partition Master to delete old system drive, creating new partitions on the old drive to save data.