Windows 10: How to initialize second drive without formatting it?

On Windows 10 Home:

I have an old second internal HDD (D:/) from my previous desktop which contains all my personal files that I want to move on to my knew desktop. Adding a new drive was easy using disk management which you just had to format the new drive to get it initialized, but for this particular drive I want to initialize it without having to format it. The problem then is when I plug it in the new desktop it will ask me to format it which I don't want to do. Is there a way to initialize the second drive without having to format it?

Cheers!

:)

 

How To Format A Write Protected Flash Memory ?

¿You already tried this one?...

Run CMD


1. diskpart
2. list disk

Then in the 3º step, put the correct number of disk in the list for the usb flash (if it's listed in disk 3, then you'll have to write select disk 3).

2. select disk #
3. clean
4. create partition primary
5. select partition 1
6. active
7. format fs=fat32
8. assign
9. exit

with that commands you will format the flash drive in fat32, if you have a large drive you can select also "format fs=ntfs" in step 7.

good luck!

 

Cannot Format HD


Need to initialize it as GPT disk type with HD > 2TB:
From Admin command prompt:

1. diskpart
2. list disk =====> Take a note of disk # for the 4TB HD
3. select disk # ====> From step 2
4. clean
5. exit

Open Disk Management and initialize the disk as GPT, create simple then format.

 

Format an external Drive.

Hello Roger,

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

I would suggest you to follow the below steps to format the drive you are referring to.

• Right Click on Start menu and select Open Computer Management.
  
• 
  In the left pane, under Storage, click Disk Management.
  
• 
  Right-click the volume that you want to format, and then click Format.
  
• 
  To format the volume with the default settings, in the Format dialog box, click
  OK, and then click OK again.
  

Note: You cannot format a disk or partition that is currently in use, including the partition that contains Windows.

Hope it helps.

Thank you.