Format through USB

[Jake_ IS]

Hey guys

I just got a new Seagate 250GB Barracuda SATA300 Hard Drive and a Vantec External HD Enclosure to put it in. I'm thinking I have to format the drive before it will work. Can I do it through the USB and if I can, how exactly ? Any help would be appreciated.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, I am a noob when it comes to this stuff

 

[Ryder_JHB]

It should be as simple as plugging the usb cable into your pc, and after Windows(?) detects the device, you may find that it has already been formatted. If not, right click "My Computer",click manage, find "Disk Management" in the left hand list, find the new drive in the right hand window, right click it, create new partition, then format!

Or you may be lucky, and get a new drive letter appearing when you click My Computer. It may ask you if you would like to format it when you attempt to access it for the first time!

 

[xrapidx]

What he said.

 

[Jake_ IS]

Thank you very much Ryder_JHB I will try that and report back.

 

[thisgeek]

When you connect the brand new drive in it's enclosure to your usb port, you'll get the usual 'New hardware found' schpiel. When it's finished and it says that your new hardware is ready to use, you will need to open up Computer Management (Right-click your My Computer, select Manage).

In the tree on the left hand side, expand the Storage category (it should already be open), and click Disk Management. It may take a few secs before it opens properly.

You should see a new entry in the list, which is your nice new USB drive. It will probably say Unformatted, and the drive display in the lower half of the window will not have a colour band across it.

(I'm a bit hazy on the exact procedure, as it's been awhile, but the actual method should be similar)
Right click on the white empty space in the drive, you should have an option to create a new partition. Follow the prompts, and create a new NTFS partition. Once you've done that, you can right click on the partition again to format it. I recommend doing a 'quick' format, since a normal format can take quite a long time on big drives.

It should automatically assign a drive letter to the disk, but if it doesn't just right click the partition and use the 'Change Drive letter' option.

Hope this helps.

 

[Ryder_JHB]

hmmm. Dejavu!