How to reformat external hard drive?

I have two external hard drives: SIMPLETech 250 gig, and I/O Magic 200 gig. I need to restore them to how they were when I bought them. That is, I must reformat them. How do I do so?

I will have to use two different computers. One is Gateway GT4016 running WinXP with Media Center Edition 2005. The other is eMachines T4510 running WinXP Home.

 

If i'm understanding the question correctly here is my answer. open my computer right click on the external drive letter, come down to format click format and this may do the trick. If I read the question wrong hold on someone else will have a better answer.

 

You got it, Bugga. Are there going to be any questions I shall need to answer, such as sector size or something about patitions? If so, I don't know the answers.

Once long ago a help desk tech insisted that I must reformat a cmputer's hard drive if I ever wanted it to work agin. I used a built-in reformat in a fashion similar to what you suggest. midway, as i recall, I had to make some choices. I must have erred, because when finished, a 4-gig hard drive had only 2.2 gig capacity. Something about partitioning, I was told later. In using these external hard drives to mirror two cmputer hard drives, a similar loss occurred. one now reads as a total capacity of 1.4 gig, the other as 100 gig, hence my having to reformat. I sought help from the manufacturer, no response from I/O Magic, and Simple said simply "reformat." I asked how, no further response.

 

From windows.... Start.....Run..(type)....diskmgmt.msc
formating from windows should not cause any size problems
Leave the Allocation unit size on default

 

Thanks, chaimjm!! _"diskmgmt.msc" provided the key, and both external hard drives now are in good shape, and my computers are backed up. I'm not really wild about the backup program I used this time _ "DriveImageXML" _ but it apparently has done the job (imaging/cloning the computers' hard drives). However, if anyone wants to tout a favorite drive imaging/cloning program, I'm listening.

I discovered that the hard drives actually contained the imaging I had attempted (tho by the time I figured it all out, I had messed up the backups and so did them again). The reason the computers didn't recognize the external drive used on each respectively is that the backup program I used initially didn't "name" the portion used (such as Drive J), and merely left the rest of the capacity "unallocated" and unformatted, so that wasn't readily seen, either. I now have partitioned the external hard drive into two _ one for the backup, the other for transfers or whatever, and each external drive is at its appropriate capacity. Each also is fully recognized by both computers, and functions fully with either computer.

 

I use XXClone http://www.majorgeeks.com/XXCLONE_d5534.html It does format the target drive each time though.

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