Can't format a new SATA hard drive

[eddie1926]

Hello,
I bought a new Seagate SATA3 2TB internal hard drive. It is unformatted. My computer is a Gateway running 64 bit Vista. Gateway software doesn't have Disk Management in the System Tools. The BIOS sees the drive correctly and so does Device Manager. There is no way to format the drive--a gotcha from Gateway. Is there an independent program that will format the drive?

 

[Dereck47]

Disk Management was never in Sytem Tools.

Here's a link on 3 different ways to access Disk Management in Vista: http://www.techduke.com/2007/06/25/how-to-run-disk-management-in-windows-vista/

 

[eddie1926]

I resolved my problem shortly after submitting the question. I went to Seagate web site and they have a disk initialization utility for the purpose of prepaing an unformatted drive. It took a couple of minutes.
I have some real problems with Fry's and Gateway with this. Number 1, the Fry's salesman should have been aware of this and should have told everyone who buys an unformatted drive this had to be done and how to do it. Number 2, when I called Fry's maintenance department, they wouldn't tell me this and offered to format the drive if I brought the system in for $34.99. Number 3, Gateway (with whom I have a 5 year service policy on the computer) refused to talk to me about it because their policy doesn't cover this.