RE-Formating

[Doug]

I have a very simple question. I want to re-format a
partition. But XP wont let me. I'm not trying to change
the size of it or anything, I just want to wipe it clean.

Can anyone help.

Doug

 

[purplehaz]

How are you trying to do it? You should be doing it in the computer
management console.
Right click my computer, manage, disk management, right click the
drive/partition and choose format.
I'm not sure if this is available in xp home, so if you have home and it's
not there, then you can use a win9x floppy boot disk and run fdisk.

 

[Norm]

It's available in xp home.

How are you trying to do it? You should be doing it in the computer
management console.
Right click my computer, manage, disk management, right click the
drive/partition and choose format.
I'm not sure if this is available in xp home, so if you have home and it's
not there, then you can use a win9x floppy boot disk and run fdisk.

 

[Doug]

I am trying to do it from disk management, but format is
shadowed. I have XP Pro.
So, what's going on? Why can't I format.
Iam the administrator.

 

[purplehaz]

Are you using that partition, is xp installed on that partition? If so you
can't do it from there. If it's just a partition for data files then it
should work. If for some reason it doesn't you can always do it with fdisk
or booting to the xp cd and use it's format tools, then exit out.

 

[Crusty \(-: Old B@stard :-\)]

You can not format the Windows partition. You must do it from the install CD
or with 3rd party programs after booting to DOS with a floppy!

 

[purplehaz]

Thanks for the info.

It's available in xp home.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I have a very simple question. I want to re-format a
partition. But XP wont let me. I'm not trying to change
the size of it or anything, I just want to wipe it clean.

You cannot pull the ground fro under your own feet. so you cannot from
inside Windows format:

The partition where he Windows folder is

The one where the system initially boots (if different, as it will be if
you dual boot)

One where a page file is, if you have moved it.

You format one for the system as part of a new install - when it asks
you to confirm where, hit ESC; select and delete the current partition
and make a new RAW one to be formatted at the next stage

A partition other than these, you handle at Control Panel - Admin Tools
- Computer Management, select Disk Management and look lower right for
the graphic of the drive. R-click in the partition and you can delete
or format. A problem that you may be having is that you have a FAT 32
partition bigger than 32 GB, made by some other system. XP will not
format a FAT 32 of that size - you would have the choice of deleting and
then r-click the unallocated space that results, to Create a new one
(which will be NTFS) or of doing the reformat from some older system -
eg a Win98 Startup floppy