No drives is showing in hard disk when trying to format in windows7

try to use partition manager. best solution on detailed or low level formatting

Copy any data on the disk onto some other media using another computer (I know you have friends running XP and Vista) then just format the hard disk.= as requested by 7.

I guess your gonna reinstall Windows, is it showed up as unallocated space ?

I've it is, format it to NTFS, and your done.
You can now use this partition.

you may have to go to disk management and format the drive first. go to start > right-click on computer > select manage. this will open computer management. go to disk management on the left pane. you should see the verbatim drive as unallocated space, right-click on it and format the drive as NTFS quick format.

Try deleting the entire partition without formatting it. The drive should then show up as "RAW" to any OS you decide to install. If that doesn't work, post more info. The drive is recognized by what, exactly? How far do you get in each of the installs? Good luck.

Try putting the unit back on your laptop and using the windows disk management utility. The directions are below. Windows Vista is a bit differenct than either windows 7 or XP.

Right click on you "Computer" Icon in your start menu

A menu will open

Chose "Manage"

The Computer Management window will open

The Computer Management window is broken down into 3 sections.

The first section on the left side of the window shows a menu. Disk Management is on the lower portion of the menu.

The right side is separated into two sections, top and bottom. The top portion shows a list of active drives on the computer. The lower portion shows all drives connected to the computer. CD or DVD drives that have not disk will not show as active drives on the top section, but can be seen in the lower section.

The lower section will show the drive description, drive size and drive condition (online or off line) in small box on the left side of that section. Disk drives will designate a "Drive" and a number. Drive 0 is usually your internal hard drive. Then it would list drive 1, drive 2, etc, depending on how many internal and external drive sources you have connected to your computer. Then it will list your CD drives and generally show their drive letter assignments.

Next to the smaller section described above, is a larger section which shows the driver letter, size of the driver and condition (if working correctly will show "healthy")

This is the area you can right click and get a menu that will allow you to open, explore, mark the partition as active, change the driver letter, format the drive or delete a partition. (A note of caution here. Changing the driver letter on your main hard drive partition will cause windows to stop functioning. The main hard drive, or hard drive partition, is normally given the letter "C".) A hard drive may show two or more partitions with separate drive letters designated for each partition.

A drive that is having a problem may show that it needs to be formatted (status as Unformatted). This can be done from this window. An external drive, whether it is a hard drive or CD/DVD drive, can have the letter designator change done if you want to organize your external drives. There are times when a drive will not show up because the drive letter that they are programmed to use are taken. Most USB drives are programmed to us the letters "F" or "G". In this area, you can assign the USB drive any drive letter that is not being used and this will make it visible in windows.

See if this helps you manage the external disk and get it formatted so you can use it on your laptop.

If you found this answer helpful, please remember to leave positive feedback.

Thank You,

Brian

Hi,

The problem is you have lost the drivers for the hard drives, you need to put the reboot disk in and run it so that all the drivers can be put back into the system.

But that is the reason your hard drives won't work there are no drivers/programs for them to work.

Hope this helped.

Thanks

Jason

You cannot format a hard drive through windows comand prompt Try booting you PC fron the windows disk and follow the aesy steps it guieds you threw.

Is it formatted ? Does it have a drive letter associated to it? If not then either format it (right click on My computer -> click Manage -> click Disk Management. Now right click the drive if it is showing there and either create partitions and/or format it if it not already formatted.

If it's already formatted, and you just need to assign a drive letter, then in Disk Management, right click the drive and click Change Drive Letter and Paths and assign an unused drive letter, say Z.

Close Computer Management and open My Computer. The new drive should show up now.

HTH,
Deboo