Oyen Digital is an innovative developer and manufacturer in the portable storage industry. We are dedicated to developing groundbreaking technology products and have extensive knowledge and experience in audio/video production and mass storage. The following question is a question frequently asked by customers of external and portable USB, FireWire, and eSATA drives.

How do I format an external hard drive on a Windows computer?

To format the drive for Windows XP/2000/ME/2003

1. Connect the drive to your computer.
   
2. Right-click on My Computer and select Manage. Click Disk Management in the left menu under Storage. The new drive will appear as Unallocated in the display window on the right.
3. Right-click the Unallocated drive and select 'New Partition' to start the New Partition Wizard. If the drive is already formatted, you will first need to click on 'Delete Parition.'  If 'New Partition' or 'Delete Partition' is unavailable, you will first need to right-click on the disk name and select 'Initialize Disk' (XP) or 'Write Signature' (2000).
4. Click Next and select Primary partition and click Next. If you want to use the entire hard disk for one or more logical drives, click Next without specifying a size, and the entire free space will be converted into a single drive letter.
5. By default, Windows assigns the next available drive letter; click Next to accept it, or use the pull-down menu to choose a different drive letter and then click Next.
6. Select a format option. It is recommended to use the defaults of NTFS and default size. Change New Volume to a name you prefer.
7. Click Finish to perform the listed operations. The format operation can take several minutes to complete depending on the drive size and speed of the computer.
8. When the format process is completed, the drive is identified with a drive letter and its status should be displayed as Healthy. Exit Computer Management. You can now use the new drive.

To format the drive for Windows Vista

1. Connect the drive to your computer.
2. Open Computer Management by clicking the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, clicking Administrative Tools, and then double-clicking Computer Management. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation..
3. Click Disk Management in the left menu under Storage.
4. Right-click the Unallocated drive and select 'New Simple Volume' to start the New Partition Wizard. If the drive is already formatted, you will first need to click 'Delete Parition.'
5. In the New Simple Volume Wizard, click Next.
6. Type the size of the volume you want to create in megabytes (MB) or accept the maximum default size, and then click Next.
7. Accept the default drive letter or choose a different drive letter to identify the partition, and then click Next.
8. In the Format Partition dialog box, do one of the following: a) If you don't want to format the volume right now, click 'Do not format this volume,' and then click Next. b) To format the volume with the default settings, click Next.
9. Review your choices, and then click Finish. The format operation can take several minutes to complete depending on the drive size and speed of the computer.
10. When the format process is completed, the drive is identified with a drive letter and its status should be displayed as Healthy. Exit Computer Management. You can now use the new drive.

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