The added disk will appear as a new disk in the Disk Management utility window, but its memory space will be unallocated.

In the Select Disks to Convert window, select the newly added disk and click Finish.

In the Select Disks to Initialize window, select the newly added disk and click Next.

In the introduction window, click Next.

When you open the Disk Management utility, it automatically detects that a new hard disk was added to the configuration and launches the Initialize and Convert Disk wizard: In Windows XP, click Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management.In Windows 7, click Start > Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools > Computer Management Storage > Disk Management.For example, in Windows 7 and Windows XP you can access this utility by doing the following: To initialize a new virtual hard disk in a Windows guest OS, you will need the Disk Management utility available. Initializing the New Virtual Hard Disk in Windows Initialize a Newly Added Disk Initialize a Newly Added DiskĪfter you added a new blank virtual hard disk to the virtual machine configuration, it will be invisible to the operating system installed inside the virtual machine until the moment you initialize it.

Disk management in operating system