Format sata harddisk in vista

If any of the symptoms mentioned above transpire, then the drive may go into defensive mode, and it will prevent the drive from reading or writing any data. As you know, formatting falls under the data writing category, so the disk will automatically resist any such action. Severe damage may also lead to the hardware losing all of its content and partitions, and then you will end up with unassigned storage space. Note: It is better to be safe than sorry! Please keep a back up of your most valuable digital content.

This activity will come in handy if any such instance occurs when your drive fails to perform its normal function, and you fear to lose your data. Sometimes, there is no way around avoiding catastrophes, but the best action regarding such problems is to remedy them immediately. There are two easy and fast methods to get your hard drive into a workable position after windows are unable to format the hard drive.

Here is the step-by-step guide of both methods to force format any storage device. Disk Management is one of Windows' most trusted utilities, which is used to manage disk-based hardware recognized by the Windows operating system.

Here is the solution to format your hard drive, which is refusing to be formatted:. However, if you find any disk with unallocated space, then you can assign that space and create a new partition as a result.

Below are the steps:. The Command prompt service is the backdoor platform in which the entire working of your Windows operating system is based on, and it also helps you to perform complex administrative functions, which are not available in an average environment. Here is the guide to force format with cmd when Windows cannot format hard drive conventionally.

But all can be redeemed if you consider using Recoverit IS to recover every bit of formatted content. Make sure the drive is detected by the BIOS because if not, Windows won't be able to detect it either even with the floppy. Likes Received: 98 Trophy Points: Matt , Jun 25, My PC has nothe came with pata.

I accidentally purchased a sata drive, and bought an adapter to convert it to pata. However, I am still having difficulty formatting the hard drive.

It will go through all of the motions spending hours formatting a GB drive , then have an error at the end, stating it cannot format. Likes Received: 9 Trophy Points: Thanks for the advice. I've been looking on line, for the card you recommended. Do you know of some specific examples of cards? There are other ways you can use to achieve your purpose. Before you start, remember that the formatting process will delete all the data on your drive, including data on the system partition.

If possible, you should back up your data before booting from a bootable drive to prevent any data loss. With this in mind, let's now see how to format a hard disk from BIOS. To format hard drive from BIOS, you have to change the settings to boot automatically from disk. In this way, when the disk is loaded upon restart, the PC will prompt a message asking you whether you want to reformat the drive.

If your computer runs Windows 7 or previous versions, you'll need a Windows disk to perform the format. Windows 10 users may be able to perform this operation without a disk, via the command prompt window.

The system tells you what key to press during the restart, so pay attention to your screen and be quick at pressing the right key. Step 3 After you have changed the settings, insert the bootable drive into the CD unit or USB plug, and reboot your computer. The system will prompt you with the option to format the hard drive. Select the first option to format hard drive. Once you've done that, follow the steps below:. Step 1 Set the boot drive in BIOS as explained above, then reboot your computer from the installation media.

Step 2 When Windows setup loads, select your language, time and currency format, and keyboard or input method, then click next. Step 3 The next screen prompts you to click on Install Now, but you have to choose the Repair your computer option at the bottom of the screen. Step 4 Choose Troubleshoot on the next screen. Step 5 In the Advanced options screen, click on Command Prompt. Step 6 Find the system partition by typing the following commands and hitting the enter key each time:.

In the commands above, F is the directory of the selected volume which is typically F on Windows 10, not C as on older versions of the operating system. If you can't find Windows here, just repeat the commands and replace F with C or D until you find it. In general terms, we format a disk using the quick format, which erases data completely but the data is recoverable by some third-party data recovery software.

The other disk formatting manner is called low-level format, which erases the whole disk surface and makes data restoration impossible!

No matter which way you'll need to format a disk, to protect important data from completely erasing, always create a backup in advance. It's placed on the top position of the best hard drive format tool due to the facts of the following:. Step 2. In the new window, set the Partition label, File system, and Cluster size for the partition, then click "OK". Step 4. Click the "Execute Operation" button in the top-left corner, then click "Apply" to start formatting the hard drive partition.

It should work on all the older and newer Windows OS versions, but viewing from the formatting speed and performance, it stands out on usually the Windows XP operating system. Step 1. From the File System menu, select a file system and enter a name for the reformatted disk in the Volume Label input box.

Step 3. Click the Quick Format option to enable a quick format. If you leave this option unchecked, a slower, low-level format will be performed.

After running this low level format tool, the whole disk surface will be erased.