Re-using old laptop HD

beecee

i have an old laptop thats past its best, so i took out the HD, its 320gb, so enough to use as a backup for some old photos, only thing is its got a partition, and it wont fully reformat the whole drive size, i have it empty it shows as 286gb when plugged into a PC but when i plug it into my tv/WD it still shows old folders from the laptop days.

can anyone recommend a method that will totally wipe this drive so its like a new drive totally empty?

John7

With the drive connected to your computer, in Windows, got to Control Panel > Administrative Tools  > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management (Local).

Find the drive in the list and then select then delete all partitions one at a time. Once done, select the now unallocated drive and format to a new simple volume. Leave everything at default except the drive name (if you want to name it).

Just a point worth noting, if this is an old drive, it may not be the most reliable/safe way of using as a backup drive for irreplaceable things like photos. I would strongly advise you have several backups of such data in case of drive failure (I know from bitter experience)!

beecee

thanks, but it wont let me delete one of the partitions, it shows

Disk1 / 11.72gb, healthy (recovery Partition) / New Volume: 386.37gb NTFS (primary partition)

it allows me to delete format etc, the new volume but no options on the recovery partition.
when i select the recovery partition, the delete option disappears.

when i right click on the partition, only a help options shows.

Stiggy

You can try the command line:
How to use DiskPart to clean and format a storage drive not working on Windows 10

If that doesn’t work, you may need a Linux boot disk.

beecee

thanks, that sorted it.

supermuchurios

Try running Crystal Disk info to check on the health status of the drive