Windows 10: External hard drive shown as Primary Partition in Disk Management

Just clean install my laptop. After windows successfully installed, as usual i connect to internet, format and give name to D drive in Disk Management. After couple of minutes i plug my external hard drive to copy paste my backup to laptop and everything done, i try to eject my external hard drive but the eject button just grey out and cant click it, i check disk management and my external hard drive shown as Primary Partition.
My External Hard Drive is WD Passport 1TB. .

:)

 

W7 Hard drive partition issue

to get rid of that 100 meg windows partition that setup creates for you on a new install on a blank hdd:

- press shift+f10 when on the partition management screen in setup <-- this opens a command prompt
- diskpart <-- start the windows command line partition management tool
- list disk <--- list the installed hdds in this computer for the next step
- select disk 0 <- might have to replace 0 with the number of the correct disk
- clean <-- this will erase all data on the disk you selected one step up- dont use the wrong disk!
- create partition primary <- creates a primary partition taking up all space on the drive, adjust the command if necessary
- exit, exit to exit diskpart and the command prompt
- click refresh in partition manager and select your newly created partition and install to that

 

External Hard Drive configuration

Hello,

Thank you for posting your concern here in Microsoft Community and welcome to the Windows 10 Family.

We apologize for the inconvenience caused to you. I would like to help you further from here.

From the description of the issue, I understand that the External hard Drive is undetected in your computer.

Please follow the below suggested methods and see if it helps.

Method 1: Check the Drive Partition in Disk Management

• Right click on "My Computer" and select "Manage" from the menu.
• From the "Computer Management" window select "Disk Management" from the menu on the left.
• In "Disk Management" check to see if the drive is visible. If the drive is found, look at the partition for the drive. New drives will be labeled as FAT32 and have a drive letter assigned.
• If the drive does not display as "Healthy," or shows the file format as "RAW," then the partition has become corrupt. It could also be corrupt if the bar above the drive is black and shows as "Unallocated."
• To make the drive usable again after a partition has become corrupt or lost start by right clicking on the drive in "Disk Management" and select "Delete partition" from the menu. Then right click on the drive again and select "create partition" from the
  menu. Follow the steps in the partition wizard to create a Primary partition.
• After the new primary partition has been created "Disk Management" will display the drive with an NTFS partition.
  

Method 2: Check the drive status in Device Manager

• Right click on "My Computer" and select "Manage."
• From the "Computer Management" window select "Device Manager" from the list on the left.
• From the device list, expand the "Disk Drives" category by clicking on the [+] symbol found to the left. If the drive is detected by the system, there will be an entry for your external drive.
• If it is not listed under "Disk Drives," expand the "Other Devices" category and see if there is an entry for an "Unknown Device."
• Right click the "Unknown Device" and select "Properties."
• Under the "General" tab, it will typically display "This device is not working properly" followed by either Code 10 or Code 28.
• Code 10 would suggest a potential power supply issue (typically 3.5-inch desktop external drives). If a second external drive with an equivalent power supply is available, try connecting the power supply to the drive.
• If a different power supply is not available, verify the problem by connecting to a different USB port or by connecting to a second PC.
• If the same error code is still displayed, create an RMA and return the drive under Warranty.
• Code 28 would suggest a driver error.
• Expand the "Disk Drive" category in "Device Manager" right click on the drive and select "Uninstall."
• Disconnect the external drive, reboot the computer and reconnect the drive when the computer has finished restarting.
• If same error is displayed, try connecting it to a second PC to verify the issue.
• If the drive fails on the second PC with the same error, create an RMA and return the drive under Warranty.

Hope the above information was helpful. If you need further assistance, please do let us know and we would be happy to help you further.

Thank You.

 

External Hard Drive configuration

So method one was correct step wise (from what I can tell) But it won't let me delete a partition even though the drive is unallocated.