Cant Format D: Slave Drive

[Guest]

My XP is on my c:. My new slave drive ( d: ) needs to be formatted. But it
wont let me format it by right clicking it and selecting format from the my
computer. It says "Windows cannot format this drive. Quit any disk utilities
or other programs that are using this drive, and make sure that no window is
displaying contents of the drive. Then try formatting again." I just want to
format it. Anyone have an idea?

 

[John]

My XP is on my c:. My new slave drive ( d: ) needs to be formatted. But it
wont let me format it by right clicking it and selecting format from the my
computer. It says "Windows cannot format this drive. Quit any disk utilities
or other programs that are using this drive, and make sure that no window is
displaying contents of the drive. Then try formatting again." I just want to
format it. Anyone have an idea?

You must take 'ownership' of the drive and be absolutely sure that no
running applications, services etc. are installed on the drive. Use
XP's help facility to explain 'Take ownership of a file or folder'.

John

 

[John]

You must take 'ownership' of the drive and be absolutely sure that no
running applications, services etc. are installed on the drive. Use
XP's help facility to explain 'Take ownership of a file or folder'.

John

ps: To XP, a drive is a folder.

pps: If the drive is formatted NTFS:

Start
Settings
Control Panel
Administrative tools
Computer Management
Disk Manager
Right click the drive in question.
Select 'Properties'
Security tab
Advanced
Check all but 'Special permissions'.
(You can do this later if needed).
Hit 'Apply' when offered else 'OK'.
Go back to Disk Manager and do as you will with the drive.

If not NTFS you should be able to right click it in Explorer and take
ownership.

John

 

[stanlin]

Why not use the software that came with the drive, if it is new?
Stan

 

[Keith]

You have created a partition I take it then!

 

[Sharon F]

My XP is on my c:. My new slave drive ( d: ) needs to be formatted. But it
wont let me format it by right clicking it and selecting format from the my
computer. It says "Windows cannot format this drive. Quit any disk utilities
or other programs that are using this drive, and make sure that no window is
displaying contents of the drive. Then try formatting again." I just want to
format it. Anyone have an idea?

From where are you attempting the format? If from an Explorer window, it
won't work. Use Administrative Tools> Computer Management> Disk Management
(or Start> Run> diskmgmt.msc) instead.