How to Initialize and Format a New Hard Drive in Windows 10

This video shows you how to initialize and format a new drive! It's recorded in Windows 10, but will work more or less the same way in Windows 8, 7, and even XP.

For more help check out our Support Guides!

[SeniorCharry]

Thank you, I was trying to figure this stuff out for three hours, and with your video I formatted my drive in 2 minutes.

[ElizabethSwims]

Thank you! This video saved me a lot of headache and stress

[anyany]

Fantastic sir. Detailed, simple, and straightforward just like any good instructional video should be. Thank you.

[gzero]

7 years old video, yet after I have spent 15 minutes googling the issue, you were the one who helped.
Thank you, sincerely.

[aiseiriarts]

Did the job right just by being simple, easy, informative, quick and effective just like every single tutorial ever should be. Thanks a bunch!

[ingrogies]

I've had desktop for the last 4 years and never knew how to initialise my hard drive, after years of having to conserve memory on the SSD I was down to my last gig of free space. I now have activated the hard drive. Thank you for this!

[NBWDOUGHBOY]

I always watch this video when I install a New Drive. Best Tutorial Ever.

[vivalameme]

Straight forward, easy to follow, and easy to understand. 10/10 Tutorial

[ArmanBaig]

6 years later and still works perfectly. thanks so much. very informative and to the chase; rare to find nowadays. great work.

[shalevhaham]

Hey dude, thank you so much! I got a new SSD a few days ago and the screws were missing so I ordered them and they arrived today, and for half an hour I couldn't get it to work. But then Reddit showed me this video, and now everything works just fine! You rock dude! Keep it up!

[Modern-Renaissance-Man]

Thank you for your nice detailed explanation!

[miftahfarid]

This 4 years old vid saves me from confusion. Great thanks!!!

[TheDaxter]

holy crap thank you, im completely new to PC stuff, and the computer i bought didnt come with alot of space, when i put it in i was expecting it to just have more space, and i was dreading looking for a tutorial because people can over complicate things, but this was simple and easy to follow, thanks again

[charmnpeace]

Thank you! I purchased a Kingston driver one other time and forgot how to do it! Your instructions were simple and straight forward ... I am so grateful!

[stevencafferkey]

Bought this new hard drive about 18 months ago, didn't know how to format it and was afraid of damaging it. Was waiting for a friend to do it for me but I decided to YouTube it instead. I wish I done that at the start, your video was really easily followed and I got it done in about 3 minutes 🙂

[jasonlaviolette]

Thanks a lot dude, was looking everywhere on the internet for this. You're the best

[ExoAvarice]

Helped a lot, very quick, easy to understand and straight to the point... thanks a lot!

[matthewtemple]

This was a very straight forward and helpful tutorial for setting up my new SSD. It's the first one I've done personally and this video was easy to follow and understand. It was dead on what I needed to do and my 1 TB SSD was exactly like this for the step by step. Thank you for doing this video. Video liked here. =)

[RealGamer]

Quick and simple explanation for noobs. Thank you for not making it a 15 minute video that isn’t necessary.

[ChristopherLeBlancArtAndDesign]

Thank you very much! I'm a little embarrassed because I've built four computers in the past 10 years or so and I apparently completely forgot about the disk management setup! Great tutorial, much appreciated!