Formatting a HDD

appsy31

Commendable
Jul 24, 2016
6
0
1,510
I have recently installed a Samsung EVO SSD and I have Windows 10 operating on it. I want to delete windows from the HDD and use it for storage and some programs. When I attempt to format the HDD windows tells me that I can't proceed because I am using a "similar version of windows" Do I need to put this HDD into another pc with a different Windows identity in order to perform the formatting please?
 
Solution
Welcome to Tom's Hardware, @appsy31!

First of all, check if your system is recognizing the right OS. You can do this by unplugging the now secondary HDD from the system and try to boot without it. If it boots up fine, you could try re-formatting the HDD using the HDD manufacturer's formatting tool. You should be able to see yours have such a utility on their official website.

Usually, it's recommended to keep only the destination OS drive connected to the motherboard when installing Windows. Did you clone the OS onto the SSD or did you perform a clean install? You might encounter an OS confusion if you had a fresh install of Windows while having the old HDD connected to the SATA port on the motherboard.

Keep us posted with the...
Hello,
You do have used two or more operating systems on your computer? In order to let your computer run normally, you do need use at least one operating on another storage drive inserted on your PC.
Hence, in your case, you’d set another storage device with operating system loading as the master drive in BIOS and go try to format it.
Before format, also back up everything well.
 
Welcome to Tom's Hardware, @appsy31!

First of all, check if your system is recognizing the right OS. You can do this by unplugging the now secondary HDD from the system and try to boot without it. If it boots up fine, you could try re-formatting the HDD using the HDD manufacturer's formatting tool. You should be able to see yours have such a utility on their official website.

Usually, it's recommended to keep only the destination OS drive connected to the motherboard when installing Windows. Did you clone the OS onto the SSD or did you perform a clean install? You might encounter an OS confusion if you had a fresh install of Windows while having the old HDD connected to the SATA port on the motherboard.

Keep us posted with the troubleshooting!
SuperSoph_WD
 
Solution
Thank you for your suggestions SuerSoph. I used HGST to erase the HDD then used Windows Disk Manager to partition and format the disk and it is now ready for use. I have to say that over the years Tom's Hardware has been a valuable source of advice for buying the correct IT components and now it is the best for problem solving.