In Windows 11 to have to format a hard disk, can have many reasons. Just as in the predecessor system, there are several ways to do this.
Windows 11: Format hard disk by memory settings
If you need to format a hard disk in Windows 11, the reasons can be many. Perhaps you have bought a new SSD and want to put it into operation with the file system of your choice. Or the medium causes problems during use and you expect formatting to fix the errors. There are two ways to do this under Windows 11, one of which is via the memory settings:
- Press the shortcut “Windows key + I” on your keyboard. This will open the “Settings” app.
- When you open it, you are already in the “System” tab.
- Click on “Memory” in the right column.
- Under the category “Memory Management” you will find the item “Advanced Memory Settings”, which you can expand by clicking on it.
- Then go to the “Disks and Volumes” tab. An overview of all hard disks should open.
- Now navigate to the “Properties” button of the drive you want to format.
- Under “Format” you will now find two buttons. With “Format” you can format the respective drive with the file system of your choice, with “Delete” you just remove all existing files on the disk.
Windows 11: Format hard disk with Disk Management
But you can also format hard disks in Windows 11 by using Disk Management. This way is not as modern and clearly designed as the one via the “Settings” app, but it leads just as to the goal and should seem more familiar to you, since the tool has been part of several Windows versions for a long time:
- Right-click on the Start button and select “Disk Management” from the menu.
- You will now see all connected hard disks in the upper area.
- The lower area with a grayish background shows you in detail how many partitions are on each disk. This area is interesting for formatting.
- Pick the disk you want to format and click on the partition on it. This should now be marked gray shaded.
- Right click on the area to open the window for formatting.
- Under “Volume Name” you can name the hard disk. Directly below that you can select the desired file system with NTFS, FAT32 or exFAT. Leave the “Allocation unit size” at “Default”. Also leave the checkmark at “Perform quick format”.
- Click on “OK” to start the process.
