Format secondary drive - win 10

No picture attached. You should be able to delete each partition in Disk Management until all partitions are gone. Then create a new big one.

If need be, put the drive in another machine and use Disk Management in the other machine.

picture attached. And there is no option to delete the partitions, just to create new volumes.
drives.jpg

Use Disk Manager (Start File Explorer, Right Click on This PC. Left Click on Manage then under Storage highlight Disk Management). Highlight each partition on the 1TB drive and delete them until they are all gone. Then Right click on the 1TB uf unused space and create a single 1TB partition. Format it.

Also, take out Disk 0 out of the machine and restart. See if your SSD can become Disk 0.

There is NO option as i mentioned to delete.

Here are the options
drives.jpg

As I noted, try removing the drive and starting the machine without the 1TB drive.

This was already done. no change.

The drive must have had Windows 10 on it based on your first post.

You might try the following:  Go into BIOS and turn Secure Boot OFF. That may be preventing changes.

You don't need to delete the unallocated partition.  Right-click on the other partitions and you should see the option to delete them.

David's suggestion to use diskpart and clean will work, too.  Just be VERY careful to select the correct disk.

He wants to remove the system and the recovery partitions which if you right click you will get a help page in diskmgmt.msc

if you want, download paragon free disk manager :  https://www.paragon-software.com/home/pm-express/

that should give you all options you need

**you can also make a bootable cd, or usb stick and boot from it  to handle the partitions

You don't want to delete the Unallocated. That is what you want to make the others. Once you delete the others all Unallocated will be merged together in one 1TB unallocated at which point you can create a new 1TB volume and format it.

why format?  it is formatted

@nobus, not it is not formatted when you create a partition

You have to delete "Recovery partition" and all of the unallocated space will be combined.

You can connect this drive externally to a system and use disk management to delete or create partitions. If this method doesn't help you, use a bootable Windows installation CD to create or delete partitions.

David - since there were partitions, i assume they were used also, then they are formatted
but yes - if not ALL space was used, you best can format the whole disk

to reiterate you have to use diskpart to remove those partitions

list partition
select partition X
remove partition OVERRIDE

you have to use override since you have to force the system to remove these protected partitions

This is Windows 10.

List Disk is a not a recognized command.

I am using Windows 10 too. I open a command prompt and type diskpart and it changes my cursor to a dispart prompt like this DISKPART> that is how you know you are in Diskpart. Then:

LIST DISK
SELECT DISK X  (X is the disk number retrieved from the LIST DISK command)
CLEAN

If you want to continue to partition and format:

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
FORMAT QUICK

Either way type Exit to quit dispart. You can use dispart or the GUI. Whichever you prefer.

"List Disk is a not a recognized command."
It is once you are in disk part, which you should run from an elevated prompt (as mentioned above).

To get there:
left-click on the magnifying glass near the lower-left corner of the screen.
type in: cmd
Right-click on "Command Prompt" that appears at the top of the list
Left-click on "Run as Administrator"
Left-click on "yes"

You are not at an elevated CMD prompt.

Type:
diskpart

Now you are in diskpart; note that the prompt has changed.

NOW you can type list disk and other commands.

The "clean" command should reset the disk correctly.  Just make VERY sure you've selected the correct disk!

This worked, thanks!