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Sometimes you come across a situation where you have to erase all the data on your hard drive. Then instead of choosing to delete it manually, think about Format the hard drive. Formatting the hard drive or SSD on Windows 11 will completely erase the data. Keep the hard drive in the optimal ready-to-use state. This is very easy to do, let’s find out with Microsoft.
Format the hard drive on Windows 11
First open File Explorer. You can do this by clicking on the folder icon on your taskbar. Or you can right click the button Start and select “File Explorer“.
In File Explorer, click “This PC“. In the list “Devices and Drives“. Right click on the drive you want to Format and select “Format” in the menu that appears.
Windows “Format” will open, which contains options for how to format the hard drive you want. We will look at each item in detail below.
Parameters when Formatting the hard drive
- Capacity: This will be the data capacity of the hard drive after it is formatted. Formatting takes up a small amount of raw hard drive space due to the way the file system works.
- File System: A file system is a data structure that tells the operating system how to save/load files to or from the hard drive. Depending on the size of the hard drive, your options will be FAT, FAT32, NTFS, or exFAT. In general, you choose NTFS if the hard drive is only used with Windows. If you want the hard drive to be readable and writable on your Mac as well, choose exFAT.
- Allocation Unit Size: This is the basic block size used by the file system when you format the hard drive. In general, you should rarely need to modify this setting. So use the default allocation unit size (usually 4096 bytes for NTFS) when selecting File System.
- Volume Label: This is the name of the hard drive in File Explorer.
- Format Options (Quick Format): If the hard drive is working fine, you can choose “Quick Format”, perform a quick and high-level format process. The data remains on the hard drive but all references to it are lost. So it will be overwritten. In other words, Quick Format means removing and creating a new FAT so that the storage drive can be reused. However, the old data persists until it is recorded. If the drive hasn’t been written, someone else can find out what’s stored on it. By using one of the data recovery tools. If you don’t select Quick Format, Windows will check each sector of the drive with low-level formatting that takes longer. But will also completely wipe out any traces of old data.
Complete the process of Formatting the hard drive
Once you have selected the options you want, click “Start” to begin the formatting process.
Immediately, Windows will display a warning with the content “Formatting will erase ALL data on this disk”. Click “OK” if you are ready to clean the hard drive.
While formatting takes place. You will see a small window pop up showing the current process. When it’s done, you’ll see another notification window pop up. Click “OK”.
summary
Through the sharing of Microsoft Sites, hope you can format your hard drive easily. Good luck!
