Prepare data disks on Windows 2012, 2016, and 2019 Cloud Servers

The system does not format data disks attached to some Cloud Servers flavors, specifically I/O flavors, when you create them. Before you can use them to hold data on Windows®, you need to format them and assign a drive letter to each disk.

1. Click the Server Manager button on the taskbar.

2. Navigate to the list of the attached storage volumes. Select File and Storage Services in the left panel, and select Disks.

3. For each unassigned disk in the list, delete any existing partitions. Right-click the drive and select Bring Online. When the disk is online, right-click the disk and select Reset Disk to ensure all disk space is available for your use.

4. For each unassigned disk in the list, run the New Volume Wizard to format it as NTFS and assign it a drive letter. Right-click the disk and select New Volume.

5. Open the Computer window to view your server’s active disks and confirm the new volume or volumes are available.

Now, you can install software to the appropriate drives.