How do I partition, format, and assign a drive letter to a new drive

[The Human Sacrifice]

I just built my first gaming PC. I have a Gigabyte motherboard. I was trying to install Windows 10 off of a flash drive, but It couldn't detect any drivers. So, How do I partition, format, and assign a drive letter to a drive with no OS?

[Air]

Right-click the Windows icon on the taskbar and click "Disk Manager"(alternatively, you can search that up in the control panel).
From there, you can easily create a partition by right-clicking unallocated space or format or asign a drive letter by right-clicking a partition, among other useful disk management options.

[chiefputsilao✖️ping]

you allow windows installer to format the drive for you.

afterwards, you can partition (the hdd) into about 500gb/partition for 1tb or 1tb/partition if 2tb or larger.

[The Human Sacrifice]

Originally posted by old poo chiefputsi:

you allow windows installer to format the drive for you.

afterwards, you can partition (the hdd) into about 500gb/partition for 1tb or 1tb/partition if 2tb or larger.

The windows installer can't find the driver to format it

Originally posted by Air:

Right-click the Windows icon on the taskbar and click "Disk Manager"(alternatively, you can search that up in the control panel).
From there, you can easily create a partition by right-clicking unallocated space or format or asign a drive letter by right-clicking a partition, among other useful disk management options.

I have no task bar or anything like that because I don't have an operating system

[Bad 💀 Motha]

What are you using for:
- Motherboard
- Drive(s)
- What is set in BIOS for: UEFI Mode and SATA Mode?

[rotNdude]

So you purchased a retail Win10 license?

[chiefputsilao✖️ping]

make a bootable usb flash drive installer from a windows dvd installer or windows ISO using rufus from a working computer.

http://rufus.akeo.ie/downloads/rufus-2.2.exe

use a usb 2.0 port on your new computer (motherboard) and NOT usb 3.0 port even if your usb flash drive is version 3.0.

[Uncle Brick]

i like to use the old fall back diskpart but you need a bootable usb disk as suggested above

[darkkterror]

You don't need to partition a hard drive before installing Windows. The Windows installer will handle the partitioning for you. If Windows cannot detect any drives during the installation then you have a different problem.

First of all, does the motherboard BIOS detect the drive? What SATA port is the drive connected to? Is it connected to a port provided by the Intel or AMD Chipset or is it provided by a third-party controller like Marvel? Giving your actual motherboard model number will help us help you with this.

[Tywin]

Originally posted by WolverineClaw:

Originally posted by old poo chiefputsi:

you allow windows installer to format the drive for you.

afterwards, you can partition (the hdd) into about 500gb/partition for 1tb or 1tb/partition if 2tb or larger.

The windows installer can't find the driver to format it

Originally posted by Air:

Right-click the Windows icon on the taskbar and click "Disk Manager"(alternatively, you can search that up in the control panel).
From there, you can easily create a partition by right-clicking unallocated space or format or asign a drive letter by right-clicking a partition, among other useful disk management options.

I have no task bar or anything like that because I don't have an operating system

if you got free upgrade to windows 10, you need to do the upgrade first, then when its upgraded, windows10 will write data into the boot sector of the drive and you can do a clean install on that drive after that. Not 100% sure thats how it works, but thats what I have heard.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by Justcus:

i like to use the old fall back diskpart but you need a bootable usb disk as suggested above

No u don't u can do that right from the OS installer. After u get past the installer agreement and ready to view your disks; pressing SHIFT+F10 brings up a Command Prompt window, and you have access to things like DiskPart or other tools.

Originally posted by Kinja Kahn:

Not 100% sure thats how it works, but thats what I have heard.

You do an Upgrade first; what that does is tie your current qualifying OS and Win10 OS together, along with your Motherboard; a Win10 key is then generated and tied to your Motherboard and gets stored on Microsoft Servers. Once this link occurs, you are free to do a Win10 clean install, no further key or activation needed. But that free Win10 will now be tied to your Motherboard.

[Uncle Brick]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

Originally posted by Justcus:

i like to use the old fall back diskpart but you need a bootable usb disk as suggested above

No u don't u can do that right from the OS installer. After u get past the installer agreement and ready to view your disks; pressing SHIFT+F10 brings up a Command Prompt window, and you have access to things like DiskPart or other tools.

Originally posted by Kinja Kahn:

Not 100% sure thats how it works, but thats what I have heard.

You do an Upgrade first; what that does is tie your current qualifying OS and Win10 OS together, along with your Motherboard; a Win10 key is then generated and tied to your Motherboard and gets stored on Microsoft Servers. Once this link occurs, you are free to do a Win10 clean install, no further key or activation needed. But that free Win10 will now be tied to your Motherboard.

Well that depends on if you have a dvd drive or not as i have a micro itx board with only 2 sata cables and both being used by hard drives I needed a usb to boot the system so yes you sometimes need a usb to boot the system to install the OS

[Bad 💀 Motha]

It doesn't matter; Optical vs Flash
Either method can be used.