Format Western Digital 4TB NAS Drive

Question

_{Wednesday, December 21, 2016 8:20 PM}

I hope this is the right group. I asked this question first in the Microsoft Community and it was suggested that I should ask here.

We have installed a WD40EFRX drive but the Disk Management tool will not permit formatting the drive.  At present the disk is reporting 'No Media' and right clicking does not bring up a menu. It is a brand new drive.  We bought a 2TB standard WD drive at the same time and this has installed with no trouble. I have asked Western Digital but do not seem to be getting very far.  Is there a workaround for this please.

All replies (8)

_{Thursday, December 22, 2016 5:56 PM}

Is it connected through USB or is it connected inside the PC? (e.g. connected to main board)

Are you facing this problem in any other PC?

_{Thursday, December 22, 2016 7:17 PM}

Thank you for your reply.  It was originally connected directly onto the motherboard but I had to disconnect another drive to do that.  It is now connected through USB.  There is a difference in that when the disk was connected directly it showed to unallocated partitions but I could not do anything with them.  The drive which had been unplugged was the other new one which was no trouble.  I have not had this problem before.

_{Friday, December 23, 2016 6:30 AM}

Hi oakridge,

Have you tried to plug in the drive to other machines?

I found the following links, I hope it will be useful to you.
Windows or macOS cannot find my drive
http://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?h=p1&ID=14925&lang=en&p=619

How to partition and format a WD drive on Windows and macOS
http://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?h=p1&ID=3865&lang=en&p=619#win10

Since this is a third party product, it is recommended to ask for help from the third party support. They are more familiar with their product and they may have more resources to help you.

NOTE: This response contains a reference to a third party World Wide Web site. Microsoft is providing this information as a convenience to you. Microsoft does not control these sites and has not tested any software or information found on these sites.

Best regards

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help.
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_{Friday, December 23, 2016 8:59 AM}

Thank you for your reply.

Apart form laptops the only other desktop is running Ubuntu Linux and they suggested Windows was the best bet..

I have asked the question on the WD support forums without much response so far but I suppose it is the holiday season.  The two links you gave are new to me so I will follow those up probably after Christmas now.

_{Tuesday, December 27, 2016 6:44 PM}

I have tried the two references proposed above and have made a small step forward.  Now Disk Management reports:

Disk 3, Basic, 3726.02GB, Online

There are 3 partitions:

107.34GB, Unallocated

1940.36GB, Unallocated

1678.02GB, Unallocated

Right clicking on the first two offers to create a New Simple Volume, the third does not offer the possibility.  Trying to create a New Simple Volume results in an error message saying that there is not enough room om the disk.

I have still had no reply from Western Digital, it is becoming very frustrating.

_{Wednesday, December 28, 2016 8:37 PM}

I have now heard from Western Digital who recommended their Diagnostic tool which I have installed and done an extended test which found no faults.  This took 12 hours tomorrow I will start the 'Erase' facility.

Things are progressing.

_{Friday, December 30, 2016 9:53 AM}

The erase option has completed and I was presented with two unallocated sections, one of 2048GB and the other of 1678.02GB. I have been able to format the first section so it is now a healthy primary partition but the second section remains stubbornly the same as before, I can neither remove it or extend the other. Is there a limit on partition size? What can I do to make the second section available please?

_{Saturday, December 31, 2016 9:02 AM}

I have been advised to contact WD Support directly by email which I have done. I will report the outcome here for the help of others having a similar problem.