Western Digital is a hardware manufacturer thats brings a range of computer equipments and associated products. Preferred by most computer users when it comes to hard disks. Very efficient and reliable. Both internal and external HDDs are available from Western Digital. Most cases, you get the hard disk pre-formatted for Windows using FAT 32. So its not really required to perform a reformat unless you want a different file system.
Before Start-off
Reformatting will wipe of every data on your hard disk if it is loaded. So be sure to backup everything that is important. Get some removable media and start copying what is necessary. Data corruptions can occur on reformat due to power failure. Ensure uninterrupted power supply as well.
Reformat Secondary Drive
If you are connecting the hard disk as secondary, you can reformat it to match the file system of your main hard drive. Some cases, you may want to use it for a different Operating System, then you can reformat it using the file system supported by that Operating System or make use of the Operating System installation disk to perform the reformat. If your device is an external hard disk, you can simply connect to the computer, power on the device and click Start, My Computer and then right click the Western Digital HD icon and chose Format. Select the required file system from the drop down menu and press Start. The process may take a few minutes to complete depending upon the storage size.
Reformat Primary Hard Disk
If your Western digital HD is the primary hard disk of your computer where the Operating System is installed, practically there are two reformat options.
First is, you can reformat any partition other than the C drive. To reformat, launch My Computer and then right click the partition you want to reformat. Go down and select the Format option. This will open a new window. Now use the File System pull down to chose the file system and press Start to initiate the reformat.
The next reformat option is the C drive reformat- reformat the partition to which your Operating System is installed. Again you have two options to reformat- reformat just the C drive or reformat the entire hard disk. The best way to do this is with your Operating System disk. Enter into BIOS and change your computer’s boot sequence from ‘boot from hard disk’ to ‘boot from CD/DVD’. Insert the Operating System disk, save the BIOS settings and restart. Your computer boots from the CD. Chose to install the Operating System with the preferred file system. Windows Operating System provides an advanced option to delete other contents of the hard disk (complete reformat) while the OS installation or simply reformat the C drive and install the OS without touching the other partitions. Check in the option, if you prefer to delete the other data. Wait till its done and you have completed reformatting.
Format C: Drive
- 1
Back up any information from the current hard drive onto a second hard drive. When the Western Digital hard drive is formatted, all current data is removed from the computer.
- 2
Power on the computer. Insert the Windows installation CD into the disc drive of the computer.
- 3
Shut down the computer and wait for the system to power off. Turn the computer back on and press either “F2″ or “F8″ (depending on the computer you are using). This loads the Windows boot screen. Choose “Boot from CD.”
- 4
Select the “Reformat” option, then follow the prompts of the re-format wizard to completely format the drive. This directly leads up to installing the operating system back onto the computer