How to Format Hard Drive without OS | 2024 Complete Guide

Key Takeaways:

• By creating bootable media, you can boot a non-operating system computer. You can then format, partition, or erase the hard disk without OS for normal use.
• AOMEI Partition Assistant allows you to format SSD/hard drive without Windows OS. With this guide, you can also format a hard drive that won't boot.
• In addition, by creating bootable media, you can also how to completely wipe a hard drive including os.

Before a hard drive can be used by an operating system, it has to be formatted with a format type that the hard drive can recognize and use. This can be done using system utilities when an operating system is installed, but if there is no operating system installed on the computer you wish to format the drive on, you need to learn how to format hard drive without OS.

Besides, formatting hard drive is useful to clean data quickly, remove virus, solve the storage problem and other hard-to-resolve issues. Sometimes, the virus may lead to serious system damage, then you could format hard drive without operating system to solve the problem.

Create a Bootable Drive for Format Hard Drive Without OS in WinPE

Before you format hard drive without OS, you could prepare bootable media so to boot the computer and then format hard drive with partition manager contained. A bootable media including ISO file, USB flash drive, and CD/DVD, based in Windows PE (Windows Pre-installation Environment), can load an operating system and run the partition manager under the system. It boots directly into memory and can be removed after the computer boots. Once you have booted into Windows PE, you can modify hard drive and copy the Windows PE source files to the hard drive.

Here, we recommend you AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional to do this and take that how to create a bootable CD as an example to show you details. Absolutely, a CD should be attached to another computer with Windows installed.

1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. Click Make Bootable Media under Tools, and confirm to click Next.

Tip: It will automatically detect whether the system has installed Windows AIK or not. If not, please download and install Windows AIK.

2. Select Burn to CD/DVD to create a bootable CD and click Proceed.

The process of creating a WinPE bootable CD will take a few minutes. Also, you can choose USB Boot Device to create a bootable USB device, or Export ISO File to make a bootable ISO file.

How to Format hard drive without OS with AOMEI Partition Assistant

Now, you can start to format hard drive without operating system. When you boot the computer without OS via the bootable CD created, it will directly boot into the intuitive interface of AOMEI Partition Assistant, and then you can easily format the hard drive with AOMEI. Followings are details of how to format hard drive without OS.

1. Connect the bootable media to the computer, which is without OS. Start your computer and press to boot into BIOS. Switch the bootable media as the first boot option.

2. It will directly boot into the intuitive interface of AOMEI Partition Assistant. Then right-click the partition on the hard drive to Format and arrange settings of partition in the pop-up window.

All in all, AOMEI Partition Assistant is a great option to format hard drive without OS. On one hand, it helps to create a bootable media so to boot the computer successfully. On the other hand, it helps to format hard drive easily after computer boots via the bootable media. Apart from the two functions, it also supports to create, resize, move, copy, delete, merge partitions, and so on.

Conclusion 

If you already know how to format a hard disk without an operating system, then you can also take the help of this method to know how to partition or erase a hard disk without a Windows operating system. This is easy with the help of AOMEI Partition Assistant.

AOMEI Partition Assistant makes it easy to partition a hard disk with or without an operating system to make the most of the disk space. You can even use this tool to migrate your operating system to an SSD to speed up Windows.