The very first thing that you have to do before you should even consider to format hard drive, is to back up your data. This is the one golden rule that you should always follow regardless of whether you’re doing a new format on your hard drive, whether you’re adding a new hard drive which needs to be formatted, or any other scenario for that matter which involves formatting.

The only reason you should not be able to back up your hard drive before formatting is if your disk has somehow become corrupted. If this is the case, then you will most likely have to say goodbye to your data – or have professionals try to salvage your work if possible.

After backing up your data you can then get down to the nitty-gritty to format hard drive partitions, or even the entire hard drive itself.

If however, you’re formatting the entire drive with the thought of reinstalling your operating system from scratch and you’re quite new to this process, be warned that you might feel like pulling your hair out at times – it can be frustrating! Once you get the hang of things though it does become fairly simple.

To format hard drive partitions however and not the entire drive, you will either need to physically install a new hard drive into your computer which you can then partition and format, or you will need to delete and re-partition your old drive. If you’re doing the latter, then remember to back up any important information you have!

To format hard drive partitions, you should go to the “My Computer” icon on your desktop (or find it in the Start Menu), and click on it. You should notice a list – or number of icons – compiled of the different drives that your computer recognizes. Like for instance your DVD-Rom or CD-Rom drive; your floppy drive if you still have one; and your main hard drive partition, the “C” drive.

Anything over and above these things should be either extra un-partitioned/ partitioned hard drives, or removable storage like Flash drives.

Now that you know exactly what drives and disks your computer recognizes as being connected to it, you can choose how to format hard drive partition space. You can either, close the open My Computer window and right click on the My Computer icon, or you can right-click on the partition space you want and choose the “Format” option. This latter option is a quick method of doing things, but can cause some moments of self doubt if you’re not sure of what you’re doing.

If on the other hand you right click on the My Computer icon instead to format hard drive partitions, you need to choose “Manage” from the menu that appears. When this opens, you will need to open the “Disk Management” section.

You should see a list of all the partitions on your drive at this point, such as, the primary partition, extended partitions, free space, and unallocated space all being represented. If you need to delete any partitions (not the primary C:\ partition unless you want to reinstall your entire operating system!), then do so now by right clicking on it and selecting “Delete” from the menu.

When you have done this, (only if you need to of course), you can then proceed to your goal to format hard drive partitions. Click on the “Unallocated” space, and select “New Partition”. A New Partition Wizard will appear to help you through the next steps.

Basically though to format hard drive partitions, you can choose the size of the partition you want (and even create more than one partition if you have the space necessary); allocate a drive letter to it; choose NTFS, or FAT32 system for your partition; and perform a quick format on your intended partition if it’s a completely new drive you’re formatting.

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