re-format hard drive

[Jim J]

I have a running windows 2000 pro system. I added another,
older drive to my system. It is Fat32 and blank. I want to
reformat it as a NTFS drive but Windows 2000 keeps telling
me it is in use. Since it is blank there is nothing
pointing to it. I emptied the wastebasket and nothing is
running except windows (no anit-virus, nor windows
explorer). How can I reformat this drive?

 

[Dan Seur]

Try Disk Management before anything else after a reboot and see if you
can format it from there, or at least delete all current partitions on
it. Although Explorer appears not to be running, some process somewhere
must be preventing the exclusive access formatting requires.

 

[Wolf Kirchmeir]

I have a running windows 2000 pro system. I added another,
older drive to my system. It is Fat32 and blank. I want to
reformat it as a NTFS drive but Windows 2000 keeps telling
me it is in use. Since it is blank there is nothing
pointing to it. I emptied the wastebasket and nothing is
running except windows (no anit-virus, nor windows
explorer). How can I reformat this drive?

I think more information is needed, eg, how did you blank the drive? Are
master-slave jumpers set correctly? Etc.

 

[bimbom]

This is silly, i know, but if you're trying to format it under explorer
you probably first leftclick the disk. This could be the reason it's
reported being in use. I can remember this kind of message. Try to
first left-click on any other drive and then with right-click on the
drive to be formatted select format.


bimbom