This method will work for Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows Vista Users. Free download of Folder Password Expert, security software to password protect and lock folders on a desktop, laptop, flash drive, USB external drive, thumb drive. How to Back Up Your Computer in Windows Vista. Backup steps to save individual files and folders, or the entire Windows Vista Operating System, are quite critical in. How to Check the RPM of Your Hard Drive? Have you recently received a new computer or have an older one lying around and wanted to find out the RPM of the hard drive? Even though a lot of newer laptops come with SSDs (solid state drives), most desktops and a majority of laptops still use traditional spinning platter hard disks. Terminology "PC" is an initialism for "personal computer". The IBM Personal Computer incorporated the designation in its model name, but IBM has not used this brand. Problem: How do I find out the size of my hard drive? Solution: Windows 2000. The easiest way to find the capacity of your hard drive is: Double click on My Computer. If you have an older computer, you may be considering replacing a slower hard drive with a faster one. Even though you could opt for an SSD, traditional hard drives still cost much less and can give you a lot more storage for that cheaper price. When ordering a new hard drive, it’s very important to check the interface type and the RPM. If you’re into higher end computers like servers or gaming machines, etc, then you can purchase hard drives that have a 1. K or 1. 5K RPM, which are extremely fast. For consumer purposes though, all laptops and most desktops will either be 5. RPM. Here are a couple of methods you can try to find the RPM value of your hard drive. Check the Label on the Hard Drive. This may sound like an obvious answer, but it is also the MOST certain way of knowing the RPM of your hard drive. Of course, it means you have to open up your computer and possibly take off a few screws, but it’ll definitely give you the most reliable answer. Also, most desktops from Dell and other manufacturers make their hard drives perfectly visible when you open the computer, hence no need to unscrew anything or pull anything out. Just open the box and look inside. Use Device Manager & MSINFO3. Another easy way is to simply look up the model number of your hard drive in Google. You’ll be able to find all the specifications for the hard drive on the manufacturers web site. In order to find the model number, simply right- click on Computer and go to Properties. Next click on the Device Manager link on the left. You can also just open Control Panel and click on Device Manager from there. Now expand Disk drives and you should see the model number of your hard drive, like shown below. On my computer, it shows the entire model number of the hard drive (Hitachi HTS5. Note that if the model number is not listed completely under the Disk drives section, you can right- click on the drive and choose Properties. Click on the Details tab and from the drop down menu choose Hardware Ids, which will give you the exact model number for sure. As you can see, it’s listed multiple times, but the number is the same. You can ignore all the stuff after the underscore, as that is not related to the model number. There is also a system information tool in Windows that you can use to get the model number for the hard drive too. Click on Start and type in msinfo. Enter. Expand Components, then Storage and click on Disks. At the top you will see Manufacturer and Model. Google the model number and you should get the info for that exact hard drive. Use a Third Party Utility. You should be able to determine the RPM using the methods mentioned above, but if not, you can also download free third- party utilities that not only give you the RPM, but also lots of other information about the disk including the interface type, firmware, serial number, cache size, buffer size and more. I will post the links below to several that I have used in the past, which are free and free of any spyware or malware. If your disk supports S. M. A. R. T, then these programs can also tell you the status of the hard drive, the temperature, etc. If you’re just trying to find the RPM, some of these programs might be overkill. Crystal. Disk. Info/index- e. How to Format a Hard Drive (Windows 1. Vista, XP)You need to format a hard drive if you plan on using it in Windows. To format a hard drive means to delete any information on the drive and to set up a file system so your operating system can read data from, and write data to, the drive. As complicated as that might sound, it's not really difficult to format a hard drive in any version of Windows. This ability is a very basic function that all operating systems have, and Windows makes it pretty easy. Important: If the hard drive you want to format has never been used, or was just wiped clean, it must first be partitioned. See How to Partition a Hard Drive in Windows for instructions. Once partitioned, return to this page for help formatting the drive. Time Required: The time it takes to format a hard drive in Windows depends almost entirely on the drive's size, but your computer's overall speed plays a part too. Follow the easy steps below to format a hard drive in Windows 1. Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP: How to Format a Hard Drive in Windows. Optional Walkthrough: If you'd prefer a screenshot- based tutorial, skip the instructions below and try my Step by Step Guide to Formatting a Hard Drive in Windows instead! Open Disk Management, the hard drive manager included with all versions of Windows. Note: In Windows 1. Windows 8, the Power User Menu gives you the quickest access to Disk Management. You can also open Disk Management from the Command Prompt in any version of Windows but opening it via Computer Management is probably easier unless you're really quick with commands. See What Version of Windows Do I Have? If so, it means you still need to partition the drive. See How to Partition a Hard Drive in Windows and then return here to continue. Note: Formatting the C drive, or whatever letter happens to identify the drive that Windows is installed on, can not be done from Disk Management.. See How to Format C for instructions on how to format your primary drive. Once located, right- click or tap- and- hold on the drive and choose Format.. Once started, you can't stop a format without causing problems. So.. If you're formatting a drive that has data on it, double- check that it's the correct drive by looking at the drive letter and then checking in File Explorer or Windows Explorer (depending on your version of Windows) that it is, in fact, the correct drive. If you're formatting a new drive, the drive letter assigned should be unfamiliar to you and the File System will probably be listed as RAW. In the Volume label: textbox, either give a name to the drive or leave the name as is. If this is a new drive, Windows will assign the volume label. New Volume. I recommend giving a name to the drive so it's easier to identify in the future. For example, if you're planning on using this drive to store movies, name the volume Movies. For File system: choose NTFS unless you have a specific need to choose another file system. NTFS is always the best file system option to use in Windows unless you have a specific need to choose FAT3. Other FAT file systems are only available as options on drives 2 GB and smaller. Set the Allocation unit size: set to Default unless there's a specific need to customize it. There are very few reasons to change this. In Windows 1. 0, 8, and 7, the Perform a quick format option is checked by default but I recommend unchecking the box so a . A quick format skips the bad sector search and basic data sanitization. Windows XP: In a standard format, each sector is checked for errors. The quick format skips this check. Automatic data wiping during the format process isn't available in Windows XP. The Enable file and folder compression option is unchecked by default and I recommend keeping it that way. Note: File and folder compression can be enabled to save on disk space and you're welcome to enable it if you think you may benefit from it. However, most drives are so large today that the tradeoff between the saved space and lower drive performance probably aren't worth it. Tap or click OK at the bottom of the window. Tap or click OK to the . Back up any data you want to to keep before formatting. Do you want to continue? You can keep track of the drive format by watching the Formatting: xx% progress in the Status field. Note: Formatting a hard drive in Windows could take a very long time if the drive is large and/or slow. A small 2 GB hard drive might only take several seconds to format while a 2 TB drive could take considerably longer depending on the speed of the hard drive and the computer as a whole. The format is complete when the Status changes to Healthy, which will happen a few seconds after the format counter reaches 1. Windows does not otherwise notify you that the drive format is complete. That's it! You've just formatted or reformatted, your hard drive and you can now use the drive to store files, install programs, backup data.. Depending on your version of Windows, and the type of format, it's possible the data is still there, hidden from Windows and other operating systems but still accessible in certain situations. See How to Wipe a Hard Drive for instructions on truly removing all the information on a hard drive and my Wipe vs Shred vs Delete vs Erase: What's the Difference? See How to Completely Erase a Hard Drive for more on these other methods. More on Formatting Hard Drives in Windows. If you want to format your hard drive so you can install Windows again from scratch, please know that your hard drive will be automatically formatted as part of that process. See How to Clean Install Windows for more on that. Not happy with the drive letter that Windows assigned during the partitioning process? You're welcome to change it at any time! See How to Change Drive Letters in Windows to see how. You can also format a hard drive via Command Prompt using the format command. See my Format Command: Examples, Switches, & More for details on how to do that.
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