Formatting Hard Drive...

[Guest]

I'm trying to format my hard drive on windows xp pro. and
it will not let me... it my main hard drive i just
basically want to reinstall my windows and start from
scratch. Unfortunately it keeps giving me and
error... "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 the contents of the
drive. Then try formatting again." but how do i know what
is or isn't accessing my drive. I deleted all my scheduled
tasks and it still doesn't work... can anyone help me?

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

The Windows XP CD is bootable and contains all the tools necessary
to partition and format your drive. Follow this procedure and allow
Windows XP to partition and format your drive:

NOTE: It would be best to physically disconnect all your peripheral hardware
devices, except for you mouse and keyboard, before installing XP.

1. Open your BIOS and set your CD Drive as the first bootable device.

===> Accessing Motherboard BIOS
===> http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm

2. Insert your Windows XP CD in the CD Drive and reboot your computer.
3. You'll see a message to boot to the CD....follow the instructions.
4. The setup menu will appear and you should elect to delete the existing
Windows partitions, then create a new partition, then format the primary
partition (preferably NTFS) and proceed to install Windows XP.

5. Clean Install Windows XP
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

[Courtesy of Michael Stevens, MS-MVP]

6. After Windows XP is installed, visit the Windows Update website
and download the available "Critical Updates".

7. After installing the critical updates, be sure and visit the support website
of the manufacturer of the computer to download and install any
available Windows XP compatible drivers, such as video adapter
and audio drivers.


--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

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| I'm trying to format my hard drive on windows xp pro. and
| it will not let me... it my main hard drive i just
| basically want to reinstall my windows and start from
| scratch. Unfortunately it keeps giving me and
| error... "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 the contents of the
| drive. Then try formatting again." but how do i know what
| is or isn't accessing my drive. I deleted all my scheduled
| tasks and it still doesn't work... can anyone help me?
|

 

[NobodyMan]

I'm trying to format my hard drive on windows xp pro. and
it will not let me... it my main hard drive i just
basically want to reinstall my windows and start from
scratch. Unfortunately it keeps giving me and
error... "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 the contents of the
drive. Then try formatting again." but how do i know what
is or isn't accessing my drive. I deleted all my scheduled
tasks and it still doesn't work... can anyone help me?

You CAN'T format the drive that XP resides on WHILE XP is running.
How can the format program run while it's deleting itself? Would you
car continue to run you tried to pull the engine while it was still
running?

Just get into BIOS, reset it to boot from CD, insert the XP CD, then
restart the computer and boot from the CD. It has all the tools you
need to re-install.

 

[joe /brusi]

Try formating the drive with fdisk first than boot from
cdrom and follow the instructions to formating Ntfs or
fat32.

 

[John E. Carty]

-----Original Message-----
You need to boot from the XP CD and you'll be given the option to format
before reloading