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Format External Hard Drive Windows 11

in Windows11 by (552k points)
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1 Format external hard drive Windows 11 from Disk Management
2 Format Windows 11 external hard drive from File Explorer
3 Format Windows 11 external hard drive from Terminal

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A frequent task that we have carried out for many years is the format of our storage devices such as USB, external hard drives, local drives, etc. We do this in situations such as:

 

Formatting Reasons
  • Need to delete data
  • When used on a new computer
  • Due to the presence of viruses
  • For security and support tasks

 

 

TechnoWikis will teach you in this tutorial some ways to apply a format to external hard drives in Windows 11 and you can choose the one that best suits your need..

 

 


1 Format external hard drive Windows 11 from Disk Management


It is one of the most used methods to manage everything related to our hard drives.

 

Step 1

To use this method we right click on the Start menu and there we click on the "Disk Management" option:

 

image

 

Step 2

We will have access to the console with all the details of the storage devices:

 

image

 

Step 3

Now we right click on the external hard drive and in the available options we click on "Format":

 

image

 

Step 4

By clicking there we will see the following:

 

image

 

step 5

It is possible to adjust the necessary values ​​and then we click "OK", now we must confirm this process to apply the format to the hard disk:

 

image

 

step 6

Once the format is applied the hard drive will be ready to be used:

 

 

image

 

 

 


2 Format Windows 11 external hard drive from File Explorer


This is another of the methods that Windows 11 gives us and that many users use to format the hard drive.

 

Step 1

In this case we open the File Explorer and there we right click on the hard drive and then select the "Format" option:

 

image

 

Step 2

The following will open:

 

image

 

Step 3

We can make the necessary adjustments in terms of name and file system and then click on "Start", it will be necessary to confirm the process:

 

image

 

Step 4

We click OK and wait for the format to be applied:

 

image

 


3 Format Windows 11 external hard drive from Terminal


Finally we have the terminal to be able to apply the format to the hard drive and we will do it using the Diskpart utility.

 

Step 1

First of all we are going to open the terminal as administrator from the Start menu:

 

image

 

 

Step 2

In the console, run the “diskpart” command to access the utility and then we list the disks with the “list disk” command:
 diskpart list disk 
image

 

Step 3

We select the disk to format using the “select disk #” command:
 select disk#” 
image

 

Step 4

Then we clean the disk using the “clean” command:
 clean 
image

 

step 5

After this we are going to create the partition on the disk with the “create partition primary” command:
 create partition primary 
image

 

step 6

Now we will apply the format with the command “format fs=(File system) quick” and indicating the type of file system to use, the file system options are:

 

  • FAT32 (File Allocation Table 32)
  • exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
  • NTFS (New Technology File System)

 

Note
the “quick” parameter applies the quick format to the operation.
quick

 

image

 

 

step 7

We exit the Diskpart utility with "exit" and we can close the terminal:

 

image

 

 

step 8

Although the disk has been formatted, it is still not visible in the system, for this we are going to right-click on the Start menu and then click on the "Disk Management" option:

 

image

 

step 9

We will see the disk available there:

 

image

 

step 10

Now we right click on the external hard drive and in the available options we click on "Change drive letter and paths":

 

image

 

step 11

We will see the following:

 

image

 

step 12

There we click on "Add" and select the desired letter:

 

image

 

step 13

We apply the changes to activate the disk:

 

image

 

step 14

Now we can check that the disk is available in File Explorer:

 

image

 

These methods are functional to format our hard drives in Windows 11.

 


by (3.5m points)
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