Vantec Knowledge Base skrifaði:CAUTION: Doing the following will erase any existing data on the drive. If the drive is damaged and you wish to recover the data, continuing may overwrite the existing information!
For Windows 2000/XP, right-click on "My Computer" and choose Manage. On the LEFT pane, under Storage, select Disk Management.
Initialize Disk:
Windows should pop up the Disk Initialization wizard. Go through the Wizard leaving the settings at default. If the Wizard does not appear, look in the lower right pane and find your new drive (it will be listed as "Disk #"). If a red error symbol appears here, right click it and choose Initialize. Go through the Wizard. Once complete, or if the red error symbol was not present, continue below to Partition your disk.
Partitioning:
Locate your hard drive in the bottom right pane (it should be a black bar and labeled Unallocated). Right click on the area that says Unallocated and choose New Partition. A wizard should appear:
Choose Primary Partition, click Next.
Select the size of the partition. If you want your entire drive to be used as one large chunk, leave this as default. If you want to break the drive into smaller pieces, select the first drive size, click Next.
Select a drive letter, click Next.
The drive will likely be defaulted to NTFS format. Here you can enter a drive label if you wish or you can change it later. For new drives, we usually recommend against quick format as a normal format will be more thorough and better prepare your new drive. It can take up to an hour to complete though so if you need the drive quickly, quick format will be fine. Click Next then click Finish.
The disk should now be labeled Healthy and the black bar should now be blue. The drive will now be in the process of formatting and the progress should be displayed on the bar beneath the Healthy lable. The drive will now be visible in My Computer but will not be usable until the format has completed.
