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Re: NTFS-formatted drive with no data - do I need to "unformat" it to use in ReadyNAS?
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Received a box of Seagate Exos X20 18TB drives, "recertified". Wanted to check basic condition of drives so plopped them in a Sabrent DS-2BCR drive dock, formatted them to NTFS with one simple volume, and ran SeaTools & CrystalDiskInfo. All looked fine. These have no user data, other than whatever the tools themselves may have put on the disks.
Do they need to be "unformatted" to be used in a ReadyNAS? Found "diskpart" (launched via a CMD window). I selected one of the drives (Drive 5 below) and then "clean" which removed the volume. Now in Windows Disk Management the disk says "Unallocated" and "Not initialized". Is this good enough?
The other method I tried was using Disk Management (on Disk 4) - right-clicked on the drive partition and chose "Delete Volume". Disk 4 now also shows "Unallocated" but the status still says "Online" whereas Disk 5 says "Not initialized".
Is one method better than the other? They don't seem to do exactly the same thing.
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Re: NTFS-formatted drive with no data - do I need to "unformat" it to use in ReadyNAS?
On further inspection, appears "clean" (within diskpart) removes the partitioning storage method (MBR or GPT).
When I right-click on the "Not initialized" area of Disk 5 in Disk Management, "Initialize Disk" shows up and when I select it, I get the box below.
I guess "Not initialized" might be the correct state for these drives for use in a ReadyNAS, since that's how they appear out of the box... ?
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Re: NTFS-formatted drive with no data - do I need to "unformat" it to use in ReadyNAS?
The method using Windows Disk Manager is enough, the NAS will then recognize that the disk is unformatted, and will automatically format it and add it to the array. If your method doesn't work, you can always select it and format it in the NAS.
FWIW, I always run the full "erase disk" test in seatools - I have had some disks pass the non-destructive test but fail the erase test (and vice versa). If you run that test, then the disk also ends up unformatted.
Also, there is no need to format the disk to test it with Seatools (and I never do when I intend to put it into the NAS).
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Re: NTFS-formatted drive with no data - do I need to "unformat" it to use in ReadyNAS?
Thanks @StephenB !
Did a simple volume format is because I couldn't see the drives otherwise - in Windows. I didn't realize Seatools can recognize the drives even without formatting - nice! Will remember that.
Under Seatools "Erase" there are several options:
- Format
- Short (Sanitize Crypto Erase, Instant Secure Erase)
- Long (Sanitize Overwrite, Simple Overwrite, Write Same Erase)
Which option do you run for the "full erase" ?
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Re: NTFS-formatted drive with no data - do I need to "unformat" it to use in ReadyNAS?
How did you solve it?
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Re: NTFS-formatted drive with no data - do I need to "unformat" it to use in ReadyNAS?
I would use Diskpart with "clean". This method is more thorough. It removes the partition table and any existing partitions, making the drive show as "Unallocated" and "Not initialized" in Windows Disk Management. This essentially resets the drive to a state similar to when it was first manufactured, which is usually a good approach when preparing drives for use in systems like a ReadyNAS. The other options of course, all of them can be found here. Good luck and let us know what worked for you.
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Re: NTFS-formatted drive with no data - do I need to "unformat" it to use in ReadyNAS?
@juliejulie wrote:
I would use Diskpart with "clean".
Diskpart isn't "more thorough" - the "clean" option is the same as what Seatools is doing with the simple overwrite (zeroing every sector on the disk). So you can use either and get the same result.
The diskpart method is still very useful though, since WD removed the overwrite feature in their dashboard software.