Creating A New Partition

Note: For new hard drives, you need to initialize and partition your hard drive before it will appear in Windows Explorer.

The best way to partition a new hard drive is by using the manufacturer’s program. Most hard drives should come with a CD that includes its installation program. If not, visit the manufacturer's website to see if a download is available. If the manufacturer’s program is not available, try the following instead:

Caution: Doing the following will erase any existing data on the drive. If the drive is damaged and you wish to recover the data, continuing may overwrite the existing information!

Creating a new partition in

Windows XP/Vista/7

To create a new partition in Windows XP/Vista/7:
1Right click My Computer, then click Manage.
2Select Disk Management under Storage on the left pane.

Windows should now give you the option to initialize the disk. If not, locate the new drive, right click on the new disk (where it says “New Simple Volume”) and choose Initialize.(This step may not be required for some hard drives)

3Follow the prompts in the wizard.

4Once complete, locate your hard drive in the bottom right pane. Right-click on the area with a status bar (to the right of the “New Simple Volume” area) and click New Partition.

5Continue following the directions of the wizard. The recommended partition type is “primary” and the recommended file system is “NTFS.” Note that Windows XP limits FAT32 partitions to only 32 GB.

You should now be able to see the drive in Windows Explorer.

Formatting the hard drive in Windows

To format the hard drive using Windows:

Note: Formatting is only required for a new hard drive. Do not format a drive that contains valuable data that you want to save.

1Click Start, then click Control Panel.

2Click Performance and Maintenance (in Windows 7 click System and Security), then click Administrative Tools.

3Click Computer Management, then click Disk Management from the menu on the left side of the screen.

4Click on the new drive, then click on the Action tab at the top of the screen.
5Go to All Tasks, then click on Format from the menu.
6Select the file system and other choices you want, then click OK.

Creating a new partition in Mac OS X 10.4 or higher

If you are using a new hard drive, you may need to initialize it first. Initialize your internal hard drive using Drive Setup from the Mac OS CD that came with your computer.

To initialize a Hard Drive:
1Start your computer from the Mac OS CD.

2Locate the Utilities folder on the Mac OS CD and double-click it to open the folder.

3Double-click Drive Setup.

4In the list of drives, select the drive you want to initialize, then click Initialize.

To format your hard drive with Mac OS Extended format:

This method of formatting hard drives allows for more efficient use of hard drive storage space.

1Click Custom Setup.

2Select the Type menu in the Volume Info area, then choose Mac OS Extended Format.

3Resize the volumes if desired.
4When ready, click OK, then click Initialize.
If initialization fails, do the following:
1Choose Initialization Options from the Functions menu.

2Click the checkbox next to Low level format, then click OK. Choosing this option adds significant time to the initialization process.

Formatting the hard drive on a Mac

To format the hard drive:
1Start the Disk Utility tool (under Applications).
2Select the new hard drive you are trying to install.
3Click the Erase tab.
4Choose a volume format and assign a name to the new drive, then click Erase.

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