How do I format a drive that dosen't want to be formatted?

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Videot

My Computer tells me that I have about 4 GB in one partition. Even when I
have set view to display hidden files all I can see in the partition is one
folder which when you right click on it says that its size is zero. When I
right click on the partition & ask for it to be formatted is says everything
will be erased but when I click to proceed it says that it can't be
formatted & shut any window that might be using this data. The files aren't
being used or displayed my anything that I am aware of. How do I recover my
4GB?

Thanks in advance
 
First, be very careful that you really want to format this partition. If
you know that it used to hold only plain user data (e.g., DOC, XLS, JPG),
then OK. But, if you do not know what was on it, STOP, it could be a
special recovery partition, or related to some (non-XP) restore program,
like GOBACK.

However, if you really want to format it, here is a way that should work:

Run the XP recovery console form the XP CDROM. It allows for both
formatting and separately deleting partitions.

Here are some links about the recovery console:

http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/wxprcons.htm

http://www.xxcopy.com/xxcopy33.htm (near bottom)

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_rec.htm
 
I now have had it reformatted. I was reminded that I had Partition Magic on
my PC & it seems that it can do what Windows could not.
 
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