Guide: Initializing and formatting a second hard drive

This guide will cover how to initialize and format your secondary hard drive or new hard drive in Windows 7. This guide should also function for Windows 8, although the steps may be slightly different.

I've just installed a third hard drive into this computer, as you can see only two hard drives and my camera show up under Computer. I will be preparing the new hard drive for use.

First, hit the Start button and search "Disk Management"
One of the results should be "Create and format disk partitions". That is the result that you will use.

As soon as you launch Disk Management it should prompt you to initialize the hard drive. Choose MBR for a hard drive with a capacity of 2TB of less, otherwise select GPT, then hit OK

With the hard drive initialized it will appear in the bottom half of the Disk Management window as an unallocated disk as shown.
Right click the unallocated drive and select "New Simple Volume".

The Wizard will launch. Follow the prompts to complete the formatting.
It will prompt you to select the drive volume size (default is all, you will probably use default), select a drive letter, and select a file system (you should probably use default)

The drive should now show up under Computer and is ready for use.