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I have removed a hard drive from a on digital box and need to format it to ntfs is there a way to do this in windows 7 without using gpart or others ?

an on digital box otherwise known as a freeview box records tv but has a none windows file system

dose not show in disk partion and format
dose not show in my computer but shows in bios

you all seem so confused its simple its a normal hard drive with a none pc/mac/linux file system that i need to be formatted into a windows file system IE. NTFS

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what is a digital box? is there any problem with simply using the disk management mmc with formatting it? – Journeyman Geek May 4 '11 at 23:47
What @Journeyman Geek said. Can you please edit the question to provide details and specifics? As it stands it makes no sense and I'm voting to close as not a real question. – Shinrai May 4 '11 at 23:49
how can you say it is not a question when i have asked just that an on digital box otherwise known as a freeview box it records tv but has a none windows file system and dose not show in mmc – madyotto May 5 '11 at 0:03
maybe Shinrai instead of planning to vote down in the future you would not be so eger to put questions down because you do not understand them and if you do not know what one is then maybe that is because you can't help and not because someone has not asked a question – madyotto May 5 '11 at 0:13
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closed as not a real question by Shinrai, Randolph West, Hello71, Gareth, Mehper C. Palavuzlar May 5 '11 at 13:56

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. See the FAQ for guidance on how to improve it.

3 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

Windows 7 will let you format the drive once you connect it, but you will lose the data that stored on it, and your digital recorder is likely to not recognize it afterwards.

right click on Computer, go to manage-->disk management, it should show up there. You can delete the existing partitions on it and re-partition and format to ntfs.

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that is the idea i want it for use on computer as i have upgraded the one in the recorder – madyotto May 5 '11 at 0:57
also as stated above windows dose not reconise the drive as it is not a windows file system – madyotto May 5 '11 at 0:59
What exactly do you mean with "does not recognize"? It does not show up in "My Computer"? – René May 5 '11 at 1:15
it will not show in windows explorer or in windows mmc but dose in BIOS windows will only reconise fat or ntfs type file systems not the unused one of the tv box recorder – madyotto May 5 '11 at 1:22
you all seem so confused its simple its a normal hard drive with a none pc/mac/linux file system that i need to be formatted into a windows file system IE. NTFS – madyotto May 5 '11 at 1:27
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up vote 0 down vote

You might want to try and using the "Disk Management" tool in Windows. It might show up there.

You get there by clicking/doing the following:

  • Start
  • Control Panel
  • (Make sure that in the top right, it says "View by: Large/Small Icons")
  • Administrative Tools
  • Computer Management
  • In the left pane, click "Disk Management". It's under the "Storage" catagory in the treeview.
  • See if your disk is in the list in the center of the window now.
  • Right click the disk
  • "Format..."
  • Change file system to NTFS, or whatever desired.
  • A quick format is reccomended, if you don't want to waste literally hours of your time.
  • Press OK, and let the process finish.

P.S. What exactly do you mean with "mmc"? Do you mean "mmc.exe"? Because I don't have a clue why hard drives should show up in that program.

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MMC usually refers to the Microsoft Management Console: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Management_Console – user55325 May 5 '11 at 1:26
There's another .exe called "mmc.exe" in Windows. It is something entirely different. – René May 5 '11 at 1:27
very clear steps there but i have done this and this is what for some reason i mean by mmc lol i have not slept in 32 hours because i have sleeping problems pmsl sorry for the confussion i will edit origianl question now – madyotto May 5 '11 at 1:52
i think a quick format only works if you aren't changing the file system type. – Zach May 5 '11 at 2:21
no one has mentioned a quick formatt – madyotto May 5 '11 at 2:43
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up vote 0 down vote

Best way to get windows to use the drive is to write zeros into the first few megs of data. I'd use "dd" for that, but you seem to prefer some other solution. At any rate once you do that windows will see it as a "new" drive, ie one that has never been used before and it will then let you format it any way you want.

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DD what is this and can it be done in windows IE. is there a program or app that will help recnoize the drive ? – madyotto May 5 '11 at 1:49
chrysocome.net/dd is where you can find the Windows version of dd and its documentation. – user55325 May 5 '11 at 2:08
what is dd though i have no idea and more to the point will the windows version help to reconize the drive if windows already dose not ? – madyotto May 5 '11 at 2:20
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