Formatting can take while (sometimes hours) depending on your hard drive(s). Make sure your computer is plugged into a reliable power source so the formatting process is not interrupted. If you can’t sign in to the PC, boot to the sign-in screen and press ⇧ Shift as you select Power > Restart. When the PC comes back up, select Troubleshoot, then Reset this PC, and then skip to step 5.
Press ⊞ Win+S to open the search bar. Type disk management. Click Disk Management in the search results. A list of partitions appears in the top-half of the window, while a list of physical hard drives appears at the bottom.
Right-click the drive and select Initialize Disk. Check the box next to the hard drive. Select MBR (Master Boot Record) if the drive is smaller than 2TB, or GPT (GUID Partition Table if it’s 2TB or larger. Click OK. Right-click the “Unallocated” box to the right of the disk and select New Simple Volume. Click Next. Specify a partition size (optional) and click Next. Select a letter for the new drive and click Next. Skip to Step 5.
Formatting can take while (sometimes hours) depending on your hard drive(s). If you’re using a laptop and it isn’t plugged in to a power source, plug it in now.
