Formatting a hard drive means erasing all the information on the drive and setting up a file system so that your operating system can use it. You should format a hard drive if you plan to use it in Windows.
How to Format an SSD or Hard Drive in Windows 10
Follow these simple steps to format a hard drive in Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP:
Open Disk Management, the hard drive manager that comes with all versions of Windows. There are several ways to do this, but the easiest is to type diskmgmt.msc into the Run dialog or Start menu.
Find the drive you want to format in the list at the top. There is a lot of information in this tool, so if you can't see it all, maximize the window.
