Formatting a 2T Samsung G3 Station hard drive

My something new for today kind of happened by accident. So of course I'm going to tell you the whole story from the very beginning. Sit tight and keep reading if you like.

I have been looking for a new external hard drive for a long time now. My friend Nhi is so sweet and  always tells me about any deals or specials she comes across, but I've never committed to buy because I've been holding out for a real bargain. 

As I was driving home from work today, I was planning to go into The Good Guys to see if there would be any cheap hard drives for sale, but as I drove along, I saw a Cash Converters store. I made a really quick decision to stop into Cashies. 

I didn't see any hard drives on the selves when I went in but I did find PS3 game that my brother wanted for $20 so I decided to grab that. When I got to the counter I asked the guy if they had any hard drives and he went over and pointed out a 2 terabyte Samsung G3 Station external hard drive...for $79!! Now, to me that is a bargain. The real kind of bargain that I was holding out for. Normally brand new 1 terabyte hard drives will sell for about the same price or even more expensive, so a 2T for 79 buckaroos is a something no one should ever pass up; even if the hard drive is second hand. Plus the hard drive looks like lego. I like the novelty of that. 

So the guy at the counter and I got talking about gaming and the hard drive and what not and as I gave him my card to pay for the two items, he told me that he'd sell it all to be for $85!! You might not think saving $14 is much, but it totally made my day!

So seriously guys, head out to Cash Converters in Joondalup. The staff there are great :)

Ok, so back to my something new for today. I plugged in the hard drive and to my disappointment it didn't show up in 'Computer' and so I couldn't transfer all of the my files into the hard drive.

I'm not all that tech-savvy, but I'm one of those people who like to try and work out a problem before throwing in the towel. In my case, just really didn't want to drive all the way back to Joondalup and ask them to have a look at the hard drive for me. 

I jumped onto Google and decided to try and find an answer there. I usually am very precise with my Google searches and will be strategic about what search terms to use in order to yield the most refined and relevant search (because that's what a Bachelor of Science will do to you), but this time round I typed in something ridiculous like "2T Samsung hard drive G3 not showing up in computer". 

Turns out that the search was fine because I found the answer on Yahoo Answers. This post is already so long, and I apologise for that, but my mission today is to post up a tutorial of how to format your drive so that it can be accessed.

I've never had to do anything like this before, and it just goes to show that girls are quite capable of working out technology problems. All you need is Google...and someone out there to explain it. 

Now I came across the word "partitions" a lot and I'm still not sure what that is, but not to worry, I will Google it later :P

Ok, so here's my tutorial for what to do if your hard drive is recognised by your computer, but doesn't show up in your list of devices under 'Computer' (Note: this is only for Windows 7. If you're using something else, then it might be different and I'm sorry but I can't help you there):

1. First check that the hard drive is actually recognised by your PC/laptop. Go to 'Control Panel' and then 'Devices and Printers'. Your drive should be there if it has been recognised by the computer
2. So if it is, then next open the start menu, right click on 'Computer' and click 'Manage'.
3. On the right hand side click "Disk Management". If you can't see it make sure you have the "Storage" option expanded.
4. Locate your drive and right click on it. If the drive is color coded black (unallocated space) then right click and select 'Format'. Otherwise click "Change Drive Letter and Path".
5. You will then have to go through the process of formatting the drive. I got freaked out at this stage because I didn't know what settings to choose. But I managed to find the answers on good old Google. So you have to change your hard drive from FAT32 to NTFS,because FAT32 limits the size of transferred files to 4GB. Where it says File System change the Answer to NTFS and leave the Allocation Unit to default. Click on Perform Quick Format if you want. But note that if you click OK, then it will erase all the data on that hard drive. It was fine for me because there wasn't anything on my hard drive to begin with, but if you've got files on there that you want to keep, best move them first.

And that's it!!

Step 5

So that's my long long story of how I got my hard drive to work :) 

I found all my answers here and here, but I thought I might just condense it into one post to make it easier for people instead of having to do multiple searches on Google and sifting through all the search results. 

Also, if you are buying something second hand, try and see if you can find the user's manual online. Luckily I was able to find one for the Samsung hard drive.

That's all from me today. God bless Google :)