I've got a problem with a couple hard drives, I recently switched from a Debian Linux install to Windows 7, installation went without problems but now I find that there is no way to format a couple of hard drives I have installed:
one is a Hitachi 1TB with two partitions both NTFS formatted and I can access only one of the two.
the second is a WDD 800GB, it contains one full partition EXT3 formatted, so that's not a surprise that is not recognized.
The problem here is that Windows recognizes the two drives and lists them in the control panel's devices list but doesn't allow me to do any action on them.
AFAIK the problem with the first drive first partition (which is NTFS formatted) has something to do with MBR, maybe Linux messed with it and Windows 7 is incapable of using it.
My first course of action will be recovering the data in the first partition and moving it to the second, but after that how can I format the two drives? Do I have to reinstall the whole OS and use the partition manager of Windows 7 installer or are there other ways?
Best Answer
If you only want to format these drives for use with Windows 7, and don't care about any data that is on them currently, there is no need to install any additional software.
Hit the Windows key, type
disk managementinto the search box, and then press Enter. This will present you with a window that will show the disks and allow you to format and/or partition them. You can also set up advanced features like software raid and more from here. The only thing you will not be able to do from here is mount these disks as they are, because about the only file systems Windows understands natively are FAT, NTFS, and the various optical formats.