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Initializ Newly Installed Hard Drive

Hi,

will be part of a series of questions regarding software installation of an already recognized 160GB HD on WinXP SR1. Instructions are to open the disk management module in My Computer. I get to the screen showing the recognized drives, of which the recently installed one is shown, blank space identified as Disk 1, area is indicated as unallocated, and when clicked fills with slanted lines. Right click is supposed to open an option to initialize the drive bringing up a Wizard. When I right click, up pops options: formalize, properties, or help, the word Initialize never appears anywhere. Clicking on formalize takes me to the Formalize Wizard. I selected a few of the options, then cancelled.

Question: how do you determine whether or not a disk is initialized, and why would the Initialize Wizard not appear? How does one manually initialize a drive in this situation? Am using several how-to and instruction guides, but this particular issue not covered.

Thanks,

Del86

Callandor

This is a common question, but the process is as follows:
Right-click My Computer, Manage, Storage, Disk management
Right click on the disk, choose "create partition" and follow the instructions; then it should format the disk.

del86

ASKER

Thanks, Callandor, while I stated it badly, those steps I have taken, but prior to "create partition" there is supposed to be a step to initialize the drive. This is my question, how do I know if it's initialized? I don't know what initialization implies except from reading a short description in a glossary. Would the "create partition" choice appear if the disk were not initialized, or is initialization part of the "create partition'" process?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Callandor

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