Reformatting to fresh start without software? Hi, I was just wondering, is it possible to reformat this particular drive, (leaving no traces of western digital software on the drive) and still have plug-n-play ability?
374227
If you still need the help, you may can use the "Disk Management" program in windows 7. Once you find the program that lets you reformat the volume, it should be simple to follow the rest of the instructions.
2074808
Basically, any new operating system installs best on a newly formatted HD. This means your computer's empty. You are not going to save your programs and data. Be aware most programs will need to be reinstalled, then it's data can be restored. This being said, your computer should forget who it was and it's component parts also, part of a OEM disk protocol is to format your HD. Be sure to have access to your computer's manufactures web sit for driver access. Win 7 Pro has a good driver data base but may not have your network card or wireless radio. Having an Ethernet dongle is recommended. This is if you have an OEM OS disk, an update disk is different. Not as clean of a reinstall of the OS, I've heard.
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When you reformat a drive all of the data will be wiped out. Always make it a practice to backup your data because sooner or later a drive could go bad.
2034942
Wouldn't you rather reinstall your programs and such onto the new drive and not copy everything over? I have had less issues starting from scratch than imaging it.Alienware should use standard sized drives unless everything is on a mSSD.
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I'm honestly not sure, as I immediately formatted the drive when I got it. Sorry!
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I am not familiar with that machine but the one's I have just play. No erase, No record, no nothing. I would think you would neeed a computer ro Format he CD's and reload your new stuff.
489053
Just to throw in my 2 cents here, the Disk Utility reformat mentioned above in Andrew's post is spot-on. The drive so far as been great to use. However, I'm running Mac 10.5.6 and it was immediately recognized when I first plugged it in: it mounted and Time Machine asked if I wanted to use it for backups...I did the reformatting anyway as the apps on board are no use to a Mac owner.BTW, the $99 price was unbelievable!Fingers crossed on reliability,Yikesboy
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You sure can, there is no need to format the drives before installing. I bought this to take my two drives from an old desktop that had died, each that had plenty of data, and had it up and running with my new laptop in no time at all with full access to all of the old data. I've now used this with both Windows XP and Windows 8 without any issues, and have since swapped in a new drive from another old desktop.
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Recently I added a drive with data to mine. and I was able to restore the data, Back it up and format the drive for a new use. it worked well. I was using windows 7, I am not sure of the format I believe it was NTFS.
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If your using it as a secondary drive Windows will reformat it for you. I reformatted mine several times.
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Can't say, other than the onekey recovery system. I've not really had any issues to have to reformat.
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I first tried an existing hard drive. It did not need formatting. When I installed a new hard drive and it didn't work, I assumed the Mediasonic wasn't working and returned it. Later when I installed the new hard drive in my PC, I found that it did need to be formatted. Therefore, I'm not sure if formatting was an issue in my case. Based on the other answer you received, maybe I did return the case when I really didn't have to.
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How? I hooked up my portable hard drive and it did not work! Problem is, its NTSF and not FAT32 formatted. Tried to reformat, and no go there either.
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No but you can boot from a standalone CD program and make a copy of a drive that has been freshly formatted.
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Hi D. Petitpas,I was wondering if anyone would ever reply to my post. I didn't know that these drives were shipped pre-formated and I don't think that it is listed in it's description here on Amazon. Thank you so very much for setting me straight!
1392537
I need to swap the print circuit board, since PC cannot detect this drive any more. I have tons of data on this drive that needs retrieval. So I placed another order again. Hope I will get exact model as I bought in Nov, 2010. The model I received last time is also WD20EARS-00MVWB0. Can someone report what's their model number now, if they bought it recently? Thank you. I will report mine once I get it on Monday.
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I'm in the process of doing this exact upgrade, except up to 480 GB. Using Macrium Reflect Free, I was able to clone the drive, swap it into the Series 9, and the computer is acting perfectly. It worked. The problem is that even though it's a 480 GB drive, windows just shows it as the same size as old one, with 300GB of "unallocated" space that I can't figure out how to make accessible. If you figure it out, please let me know how you did it! My thread is one of the other Q & A threads on this same product.