Tag: Storage

Below is a quick guide to illustrate how we can format a disk using diskpart.

First open the command prompt (if booting from Windows install media you may be able to open the command prompt by pressing F8 or Shift+F10).

In your command prompt, type diskpart to enter the diskpart utility. Your input cursor should now look like DISKPART> and you are ready to run the commands below:

// list all disks connected to your computer
list disk

// select the disk you wish to format. Replace X below with the number you see from list disk
select disk X

// marks everything on the disk to be deleted
// you could also use "clean all" to actually delete it, but this will take a while
clean

// convert disk to MBR - you could also change mbr with gpt
convert mbr

// create a new primary partition
create partition primary

// select the newly created partition
select part 1

// make it active if this is the boot partition
active

// format it to NTFS fileystem and set label to whatever you wish
format fs=ntfs label=X quick

// assign a letter to the partition, typically C for the Windows drive
assign letter C

// list volumes to verify the results
list vol

For more information about Diskpart, see:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766465(v=ws.10).aspx