Problem managing external hard drive

jcgc

New Member
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I took a hard drive from my old Vista machine. It is a sata drive. Put it in a USB 3.0 shell and plugged it in. My plan was to then format it. The drive does not show up in windows explorer. It does show up in disk management. However, there is no option to format or assign a drive letter when right clicking. Right clicking only offers properties or help everything else is grayed out.

Any suggestions?
 

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System One

  • OS
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You may have to power it off of a hub, if the box did not come with a power cord.

Try using this to format it. GParted Live on USB It should hopefully allow you to format it as a NTFS drive.
 

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System One

  • OS
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Hello jcgc!


I hope you don't have any data you need/want from that drive. Formatting erases everything. Try right clicking firston its Disk# name and Initialize it in MBR. Then right click on its disk space and create a New volume in NTFS and assign a Drive letter.


If this doesn't work, try diskpart:

  1. Open the Start Menu, type diskpart, press Enter
  2. Type list disk, press Enter
  3. Type select disk X (where X is the number the certain drive), press Enter
  4. Type clean, press Enter
  5. Type create partition primary, press Enter
  6. Type format quick fs=ntfs, press Enter
  7. Type assign letter=X, press Enter
  8. Type exit, press Enter


Make sure you choose the correct drive!


If these don't work, try connecting the drive without an enclosure but rather with a USB to SATA adapter.


Post back with results and good luck! :)

CK_WD
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows
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