Does New hard Drive need formatting?

[madmaven]

Hey, Just wondering if it is Standard Operating procedure for all new hard drives to have to format them or something before installing the OS? I have a new Seagate momentus thin hard drive ST 320LT020 to replace the exact model that failed in a Compaq running Windows 8. I ordered the disks from HP for $25 and should get them Monday. I have been reading for a while to try to find something about prepping the hard drive for first use. the drive came with no instructions and I have not installed a new drive since XP? Can you tell me how to proceed? Thanks.

 

[mbreslin1954]

Yes, hard drives need formatting before you can use them. They don't come with file systems already formatted on them, probably because the manufacturer doesn't know what file system the buyer will want on the hard drive (NTFS, FAT32, a Mac or any of the different Linux file systems, etc.).

The good news is that during the operating system install the hard drive will be formatted, it isn't anything you need to do separately in advance. During the Windows install, once you identify the hard drive and there are no partitions or file systems on the drive, Windows automatically creates whatever partitions it needs on the hard drive and then proceeds to format them. You don't need to do anything but run the install (if there are partitions already on the hard drive, delete them all and let Windows do its thing).

 

[madmaven]

Yes, hard drives need formatting before you can use them. They don't come with file systems already formatted on them, probably because the manufacturer doesn't know what file system the buyer will want on the hard drive (NTFS, FAT32, a Mac or any of the different Linux file systems, etc.).

The good news is that during the operating system install the hard drive will be formatted, it isn't anything you need to do separately in advance. During the Windows install, once you identify the hard drive and there are no partitions or file systems on the drive, Windows automatically creates whatever partitions it needs on the hard drive and then proceeds to format them. You don't need to do anything but run the install (if there are partitions already on the hard drive, delete them all and let Windows do its thing).

 

[madmaven]

Thanks I'll leet youknow how it goes when I get the Windows * disks from HP.