Formatting external hard disc connected by USB

[oddjob99]

I wish to format an external hard disc but when I try via the Dos Prompt I am asked for the volume name.
For some long forgotten reason I have obviously set one but despite trying all the obvious ones I am still stuck.
Is there a method of discovering HD volume names ?
Help please !

[ChuckFickens]

dir

[sarah_louise]

If in Windows go to START-PROGRAMS-ACCESSORIES-COMMAND PROMPT

this is DOS so type in the word vol

It will probably say volume in Drive C has no label

label is the name of the drive

The answer above dir will give you a directory listing.

Does it work ?

[oddjob99]

Hi there,
Many thanks for your replies.
Sarah_Louise you were quite correct your method worked fine.
I had set the volume to 320 GB HD.
I can not believe I was so stupid.
the HD is now being formatted as I write this.
4% completed at the moment out of 320 GB.

[tellboy]

Glad to help and thanks for your feedback.

[sarah_louise]

Sorry for the above response causing confusion. My husband was logged in when I replied.

[oddjob99]

My Hard Disc has been formatted and now has a mirror immage of my system theron courtesy of Acronis 11 Backup.
It worked painlessly and can thoroughly reccomend same.
Sarah_Louise,
Thanks also to your husband for letting you correspond with a 78 year old enthusiast.
My thanks to all.

[sarah_louise]

oddjob99 I can vouch that Acronis True Image works when it really matters as it restored my PC . (Norton Ghost on another PC completely failed me after years of me thinking I was protected)
The only worry was when I started it from the Acronis CD in recovery mode and I could not use the mouse or keyboard so sat in frustration not being able to proceed any further.
This was because they were both USB devices and were not being loaded until Windows starts which of course was not happening.
I had to change the BIOS setting to enable USB at boot up..
It is the sort of thing well worth testing when you dont actually need it rather than in a panic later..