Attempts to format G: hard drive partition fail

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We bought a new 320 GB internal drive and installed WinXP Pro on it. A
previous user of a 60 GB hard drive seems to have partitioned it into two
partitions of approx. 30 GB each. Drive letters are F and G. We
reformatted Logical drive F: NTFS without a problem. All attempts to
format G: fail. It is not possible to open G:. What we want to do is
reformat the entire 60GB physical drive, as a single partition.

I have lost my notes on the navigation path to get to "Disk Management" but
when I got there, F: was identified as NTFS and "healthy" but G had no File
System type shown, although it was also called "healthy."

Please remind me of how to navigate to the Disk Management utility. Getting
there will not enable me to format G, as my attempts have failed completely,
but I want to know for future maintenance.

Please tell me how I can force the operating system to delete both
partitions and reformat the entire 60GB.
 
We bought a new 320 GB internal drive and installed WinXP Pro on it. A
previous user of a 60 GB hard drive seems to have partitioned it into two
partitions of approx. 30 GB each. Drive letters are F and G. We
reformatted Logical drive F: NTFS without a problem. All attempts to
format G: fail. It is not possible to open G:. What we want to do is
reformat the entire 60GB physical drive, as a single partition.

I have lost my notes on the navigation path to get to "Disk Management"
but when I got there, F: was identified as NTFS and "healthy" but G had
no File System type shown, although it was also called "healthy."

Please remind me of how to navigate to the Disk Management utility.
Getting there will not enable me to format G, as my attempts have failed
completely, but I want to know for future maintenance.

Please tell me how I can force the operating system to delete both
partitions and reformat the entire 60GB.
Click to expand...

Here is the general recipe:
- Click Start / Help
- Type Disk Management
- Pick the most likely subject
 
We bought a new 320 GB internal drive and installed WinXP Pro on it. A
previous user of a 60 GB hard drive seems to have partitioned it into two
partitions of approx. 30 GB each. Drive letters are F and G. We
reformatted Logical drive F: NTFS without a problem. All attempts to
format G: fail. It is not possible to open G:. What we want to do is
reformat the entire 60GB physical drive, as a single partition.

I have lost my notes on the navigation path to get to "Disk Management" but
when I got there, F: was identified as NTFS and "healthy" but G had no File
System type shown, although it was also called "healthy."

Please remind me of how to navigate to the Disk Management utility. Getting
there will not enable me to format G, as my attempts have failed completely,
but I want to know for future maintenance.
Click to expand...

Right click on My Computer, choose Manage :-)
Please tell me how I can force the operating system to delete both
partitions and reformat the entire 60GB.
Click to expand...

I would use a floppy from the hard disk manufacturer but Seagate/Maxtor
isn't offering floppies any more. What brand name is your hard drive? If
Seagate or Maxtor, go to the Seagate web site and download their CD
which can wipe the HD clean and then partition and format it. Warning:
it can take awhile for the process to complete if you use the CD. Be
patient.

Alias
 
This was a stock answer I used for W98--guess I ought to revise it for XP
and change the fdisk reference to Disk Management.
 
Perhaps I did not understand every bit of the IBM-wipe-zap reference, but
what I did understand leads me to wondoer if this IBM utility will work on a
60GB HD?
 
Confusing; bought a large hd and installed winxp on it, then you refer to a
60gb that was partitioned by a previous user.
If this is a second user sys, then in disk management Delete both partitions
on the 60gb - after all you dont know what was done on them
 
Device Manager indicates that the 60GB HD is a Maxtor 96147H6. I went to
the Seagate website, and searched on "reformat" but the only thing I found
so far was a reference/redirection to a Windows KB article on how to use
Disk Management. Because Disk Management utterly fails to format the
logical G: drive, I need another approach.
Today, I used Disk Management to delete the partition/logical drive G:.
Then I deleted the F: partition also. Then I asked for F: to be
reformatted, actually expecting to be able to achieve a reformat of the
entire 60GB HD. Instead, Disk Management indicates that F: is only about 30
GB in size; as was the former partition.

What should I try next?
 
Yep, Zap just wipes out the partitioning info so you can create and format
new partitions.
 
The C: drive is the new 320 GB. No problem there. Disk Management
identifies this as Disk 0. The second physical drive is a Maxtor 96147H6,
which is 60GB, and identified by Disk Management as Disk 1. After I deleted
both old partitions, Disk Management now reports Disk 1 as being
unallocated, but only 31.39 GB in size, which is about half of the true
size. Browsing around in Disk Management, I see that the "Maxtor 96147H6
Properties" window indicates that the "partition style" is Master Boot
Record, and the capacity is 32248 MB.

What may I do to get the drive to be seen as its full 60 GB capacity?
 
I previously downloaded the Disk Wizard. The PDF manual is 56 pages long. I
scanned through it, and did not see any utility functionality to force
reformatting of the disk situation that I have.

Can you direct my attention to any part of the manual that addresses my
situation?
 
The printed label on the HD tells us that it is a Maxtor 96147H6, and so
does Device Manager. But nothing in the JPG referenced below (which I
printed) tells me that it is one of the four kinds of drives whose jumper
settings are illustrated. I did not find the words "Diamond Max"on the
paper label. But I did leap to the presumption that the jumper setting
closest to the power plug perhaps implied CLJ. I set the jumper in the
position second from the left, on the presumption that it was for "cable
select."

I just a little time ago went back into Disk Management, and drive F: is
indicated to be 57.25 GB, not the approx 30GB it was previously. This makes
me think that the jumper setting made a difference. I have started FORMAT
and at this time it is at 70%. However, I observed that the formatting
process did not finish successfully with the previous jumpering, with no
messages until it eventually failed. So I will stay up until it either
reaches 100% or fails again. And I will report back to the forum.
 
Check the jumpers on the Maxtor drive. Make sure it's not jumpered to
restrict its capacity to 32GB.
 
I previously downloaded the Disk Wizard. The PDF manual is 56 pages long. I
scanned through it, and did not see any utility functionality to force
reformatting of the disk situation that I have.

Can you direct my attention to any part of the manual that addresses my
situation?
Click to expand...

Sorry, I've never read the manual. I used the CD once and when you set
your computer to boot from the CDROM and the program loads, it's obvious
what you should do. Choose the "quick format", although it isn't very
quick. If you choose the full format, it will take hours.

Alias
 
I still do not know how to download the CD that Alias refers to. It might
be useful in the future.

However, I learned that it was a hardware (jumper setting) issue, and have
since reformatted the HD
 
Yes, it was indeed a Capacity Limiting Jumper (CLJ) issue. It was quite
inconvenient that there was no label on the HD to indicate jumper settings,
and the chart from the Seagate website was not specific to our Maxtor drive.
But we muddled through.
 
The format ended successfully at 100%. The Seagate website yielded a
chart that did not address this particular drive, in any way. But thanks
to your information, I was able to muddle through. Thank you.
 
I still do not know how to download the CD that Alias refers to. It might
be useful in the future.
Click to expand...

Click on the link and then click on the download. Then burn the download
to a CD. Done.

Alias
 

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