How to partition and format the DataLocker on Windows XP
Windows XP
To partition and format the drive with Disk Management, follow these steps:
- To begin, open Disk Management by right-clicking on My Computer and left-click on Manage. The Computer Management screen will open.
- Open Computer Management, you will see two panes, in the left pane, there will be a list of items. Under Storage, click on Disk Management. This will load a right pane with 2 windows on the right side. You may need to maximize the Computer Management window to see all your drives.
- In the lower right pane, you will see a graphical list of all available drives or devices. Find the drive listing that corresponds to the DataLocker that you want to partition and format. It typically has a black bar indicating unallocated space.
- Right-click on the black bar to see a menu of available options. Select New Partition.
- The Welcome to New Partition Wizard will come up. Click on Next to proceed to the next screen.
- Choose Primary Partition and press Next.
- This is where you can set a partition on the DataLocker. By default Windows chooses the whole drive so click on Next.
- Choose the drive letter that you want the drive to have. By default Windows will choose the next available drive letter. Then click on Next.
- This is the format screen. Make sure that the File System is set to NTFS. In the Volume Label field you can give the DataLocker a name if you want. Check the box that says Perform a Quick Format so that the drive will be formatted quickly. Make sure to leave the Allocation unit size to Default, and then click Next.
- This screen gives you a confirmation of all the steps that you just went through. Click on Next.
- The listing for the drive (Disk 2 in the picture below) will say Formatting as it formats the drive.
- When the drive is done (Disk 2 in the picture below) the bar will be blue and the drive will say Healthy.
If you don’t have My Computer on your desktop, it should be located in your Start Menu. You can also find Computer Management in the Control Panel under Administrative Tools.
Important: You may need to initialize the drive. If so, please see the initialization guide here.
If there is a blue bar, then the drive has already been partitioned and formatted. Make sure, that if you have data on the DataLocker, you back it up before proceeding. Once you are ready, right-click on the blue bar and choose Delete Partition. You will see a pop-up window asking you if you really want to delete the partition. Click Yes. The bar should now be black.
Note: If you would like to create multiple partitions on the DataLocker, you can type in the amount in megabytes you want for the Primary Partition, and it will partition and format only that amount. For example, if you have a 500 GB DataLocker and you want to split the DataLocker into two partitions, you could type in 250000 (for 250 GB’s) in the Partition size in MB area.
Once you finish formatting this first partition, you will need to go back and follow all these steps again to partition and format the left-over unallocated area of the DataLocker. The next time around, however, you will need to choose Extended Partion when you come to the Select Partition Type window. (Look at previous step.) Remember, when you change or add partition it will destroy any data on the DataLocker. So, be sure to plan how many and what size partitions you want before creating them.
