Format Hard Drive

[Lavert]

Trying to format Win XPSP2 Home Edition hard drive. Only hard drive
installed. Get an error that says: "Format can't run because the volume is
in use by another process. Format may run if this volume is dismounted
first. All open handles to this volume would then be invalid. Would you
like to force a dismount on this volume?" Y or N. Any help w/b appreciated.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Please start over using the following installation procedure:

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 the monitor, mouse and keyboard, before installing XP.

NOTE: If you have an internal Zip Drive installed, physically disconnect the
EIDE and power cable to it before proceeding, otherwise your main
hard drive may not be assigned the customary C: drive letter.
After installing Windows XP, you may then reconnect it.

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 all 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. ==> Immediately after installing Windows XP, make sure XP's Firewall is enabled:
==> http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/windowsxpsp2/Default.mspx

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

8. 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.

9. If you happen to run into any installation difficulties, use the following resources:

How to Troubleshoot Windows XP Problems During Installation
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;310064

Troubleshooting Windows XP Setup
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_setup.htm

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/

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:

| Trying to format Win XPSP2 Home Edition hard drive. Only hard drive
| installed. Get an error that says: "Format can't run because the volume is
| in use by another process. Format may run if this volume is dismounted
| first. All open handles to this volume would then be invalid. Would you
| like to force a dismount on this volume?" Y or N. Any help w/b appreciated.
|
| --
| Lavert Bryant

 

[Guest]

Hey,

You must be trying to format your hard drive from within windows. You
cannot do so being that it is your only hard drive you cannot erase
everything on it while running the format utility from it. You need to boot
from your windows cd and format and reinstall from it. If you need any help
follow the steps under: Perform a clean install of Windows XP in the
following link.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=316941

Good Luck

Joe

Kemco IT Professional

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Trying to format Win XPSP2 Home Edition hard drive. Only hard drive
installed. Get an error that says: "Format can't run because the
volume is in use by another process. Format may run if this volume
is dismounted first. All open handles to this volume would then be
invalid. Would you like to force a dismount on this volume?" Y or N.
Any help w/b appreciated.

You can't format the Windows drive from within Windows, since that would
leave Windows without a leg to stand on.

Just boot from the Windows XP CD (change the BIOS boot order if necessary to
accomplish this) and follow the prompts for a clean installation (delete the
existing partition by pressing "D" when prompted, then create a new one).

You can find detailed instructions here:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

or here http://windowsxp.mvps.org/XPClean.htm

or here http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm

However why do you want to reformat and reinstall? In my view, it's usually
a mistake. With a modicum of care, it should never be necessary to reinstall
Windows (XP or any other version). I've run Windows 3.0, 3.1, WFWG 3.11,
Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP, each for the period of
time before the next version came out, and each on two machines here. I
never reinstalled any of them, and I have never had anything more than an
occasional minor problem.

It's my belief that this mistaken notion stems from the technical support
people at many of the larger OEMs. Their solution to almost any problem they
don't quickly know the answer to is "reformat and reinstall." That's the
perfect solution for them. It gets you off the phone quickly, it almost
always works, and it doesn't require them to do any real troubleshooting (a
skill that most of them obviously don't possess in any great degree).

But it leaves you with all the work and all the problems. You have to
restore all your data backups, you have to reinstall all your programs, you
have to reinstall all the Windows and application updates,you have to locate
and install all the needed drivers for your system, you have to recustomize
Windows and all your apps to work the way you're comfortable with.

Besides all those things being time-consuming and troublesome, you may have
trouble with some of them: can you find all your application CDs? Can you
find all the needed installation codes? Do you have data backups to restore?
Do you even remember all the customizations and tweaks you may have
installed to make everything work the way you like? Occasionally there are
problems that are so difficult to solve that Windows should be reinstalled
cleanly. But they are few and far between; reinstallation should not be a
substitute for troubleshooting; it should be a last resort, to be done only
after all other attempts at troubleshooting by a qualified person have
failed.

If you have problems, post them here; it's likely that someone can help you
and a reinstallation won't be required.

 

[Fancified Da Vinci Bull Fairyland]

Lavert wrote:
| Trying to format Win XPSP2 Home Edition hard drive. Only hard drive
| installed. Get an error that says: "Format can't run because the volume
| is in use by another process. Format may run if this volume is dismounted
| first. All open handles to this volume would then be invalid. Would you
| like to force a dismount on this volume?" Y or N. Any help w/b
| appreciated.

You seem to not understand what you are doing. Please read up on the
subjects of harddrive partition, file format, FAT32, NTFS,
convert.exe, fdisk, format.exe, Disk Management and so before
continuing to do anything else. Here's a good starting point:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/winpreinst/ntfs-preinstall.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/russel_october01.mspx

You might be using FAT32 and want to convert to NTFS? If so read this beofre
doing so:
http://aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.htm

 

[Jonny]

Trying to format Win XPSP2 Home Edition hard drive. Only hard drive
installed. Get an error that says: "Format can't run because the volume
is
in use by another process. Format may run if this volume is dismounted
first. All open handles to this volume would then be invalid. Would you
like to force a dismount on this volume?" Y or N. Any help w/b
appreciated.

You cannot dismount the system/boot partition, you can only dismount a
partition independent of that if running within the OS.
You have to boot from another media. IE - floppy or CD for instance. And
use that booted OS to format that hard drive using a formatting tool within
its workings.
A retail or OEM install XP CD will work fine for that purpose.
Removing/wiping the current partition may be prompted, go ahead. It will
create a new one of the fileystem of your choice (NTFS or FAT32). Then
automatically format it without user intervention. Use NTFS to avoid
partition size restrictions of FAT32.