Format External Hard Drive with Multiple Partitions

"How do I reformat a multi-partition external hard drive in Windows 10? I have an existing HD for backup. Currently, it has 3 partitions. Can someone please advise how to format the external hard drive with multiple partitions into a single NTFS partition?"

Two Ways to Format External Hard Drive with Multiple Partitions

Most times, Windows desktop or laptop computer users tend to partition a hard drive into many volumes on purpose. With several independent disk partitions, users can easily and clearly manage various kinds of data in classification. However, not all people are used to build many chunks on a hard disk. There is a group of users asking our help to combine partitions into one, while the other group even wants to format an external hard drive with multiple partitions, leaving only one partition on the disk for special use.

No matter how many times you've tried to format an entire disk for once in Windows, you'll certainly fail. The inbuilt Windows programs, including Windows Explorer and Windows Disk Management, only allow users to format a single partition to an available file system. In order to format a multi-partition external hard drive, you'll need further hard work. In general, there are two accesses to achieve their goal.

#1. Delete all existing partitions and create a new simple volume (Erase data)

#2. Merge all partitions in the external hard drive into one (Keep data)

For your notice, both are attainable options to format all partitions on an external hard drive. As for capable tools that you can utilize, Windows Disk Management can do #1 well in deleting partitions and creating a new one. Whereas the third-party partition manager - Qiling Partition Master can do both #1 and #2, actually in a more efficient way.

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#1. Format External Hard Drive with Multiple Partitions Using Disk Management

If you prefer adopting an inbuilt program, at the same time, with no vital data to be protected, Windows Disk Management can help you format the external hard drive by deleting each partition as well as data first, and then let you create a new one on the unallocated space.

Step 1. Connect the external hard drive to a Windows PC.

Step 2. Press "Windows+R" to open Run, type diskmgmt.msc in the empty box and tap "OK" to open disk management tool.

Step 3. Locate the external hard disk, right-click on every partition and click "Delete Volume".

Step 4. Once you have deleted all partitions, right-click the external drive again and select "New Simple Volume". Follow the instruction to finish the process.

As you can see, this manner will erase all your data from the external hard drive. So, you'd better not try this way if you have a large number of important data to be saved. And as an alternative, we recommend you to try a third-party partition software to merge multiple partitions into a single partition.

#2. Format External Hard Drive with Multiple Partitions Using Qiling Format Tool

Qiling Partition Master is a comprehensive disk & partition magic tool that can fully replace the Windows Disk Management in basic functions, including format a disk partition, delete a partition, create a new partition and everything you can find in the Windows program. That is to say, when you need to format an external hard drive with multiple partitions, you can also use Qiling Partition Master to make the job done in the same way!

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Option 1. Delete All Partitions and Create A New Partition

One exciting experience with Qiling software is that you necessarily repeat the deletion process on every partition in Disk Management, because you need to check the data is in use.

To format all partitions on the external hard drive with Qiling Partition Master, only two steps are required:

Step 1. Select a partition on the external hard drive and click "Delete".

If you have other partition to delete, please repeat do this step.

Step 2. Select a unallocated space, and click "Create" to create a new partition of NTFS, FAT32, etc.

Fix a RAW Partition

You may have the confusion "What is RAW partition format" like many other users. You will be clear after reading the explanation.

Every partition in use has a file system and you can check it by right-clicking the partition and choose "Properties". When the file system of the partition becomes corrupted, missing, or is not recognized by the current operating system, it will show up as RAW under File Explorer or Disk Management. To Fix the RAW partition, you will need to convert RAW to NTFS, FAT32, or another Windows-compatible file system to make it usable again by formating. It's worth mentioning that you should recover data from the RAW partition first before formatting the drive.

Erase Data on the Partition or Disk

Since format will remove all existing data on the selected partition or device, you may use it as a way to clean up the partition, disk, or storage medium. However, formatted data is recoverable with the help of professional hard drive recovery software. If you want to erase the files completely, you can securely erase the hard drive instead.

In addition to the main reason above, some users may choose to format a partition to remove a virus or malware. No matter what the cause is, you can apply the methods below to format a hard drive partition.

How Do You Format a Hard Drive Partition

Format a hard drive partition can be easily done via two ways: free Qiling Format tool or Disk Management. You can format a hard drive/disk via one of two methods. However, given that useful features, the Qiling Partition Master is the better partition tool that is worth trying. See the difference between free partition manager and Windows built-in tool.

Method 1. Format a Partition with Qiling Format Tool for Free

The free partition manager - Qiling Partition Master enables you to format any hard drive with ease. It's a versatile disk management tool that also helps to create, resize, move, merge, and clone partitions.

The following cases may match what you need in formatting an existing partition or a chunk to several parts.

Case 1: How to format an existing partition

Step 1. Click the hard drive partition and choose the "Format" option.

Step 2. In the new window, set the Partition label, File system, and Cluster size for the partition, then click "Proceed".

Option 2. Merge Partitions in External Hard Disk into One

As you've learned, Qiling partition magic software is an excellent tool that works well to partition an external hard drive. It can help you reformat multi-partition external hard drive into one partition by combining partitions. What's the most important, no data loss problem will occur during the process!

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Step 1: Backup target partition

Open Qiling Backup and select "File backup" on the main window.

Select the partition to backup and select the backup destination, then click "Proceed".

Step 2: Delete this partition

Step 3: Resize other partition that will be merged

Click the hard drive partition and choose the "Move/resize" option.

Move the mouse to the edge of the partition and drag the partition to the size you want, then click "Proceed".

Step 4: Restore target partition to the merged partition

One time "Merge" will enable to combine two partitions into one, if you have three or more partitions on the external disk, continue following the same guide to merge all the partitions into a final one.