Re-formatting drive containing system files from WIN XP PRO

[Tim]

I have a home computer whose boot drive has crashed. I
had the drive backed up on a slave from which I have
restored to most of the data to a newly purchased boot
drive. I'd like to reformat the slave and use it for
backup. I have deleted all the data on the 120GB drive
and from Windows XP Professional, no files appear.
But "Properties" indicates that 9.39GB of this drive is
occupied with files.
From the command prompt, I have done a "dir/s" and find
thousands of system files that don't appear in
Windows....mostly numbered .dll and .exe files. I have
attempted to format this slave from Windows, but Windows
refuses to format a drive that contains system files. How
do I format this drive from either the command prompt or
Windows XP Professional since a search of the new boot
drive finds no FDISK.EXE? Life is never simple.....

 

[Len]

Be careful! If XP sees this 2nd drive as the "system" drive and your
primary as just the "boot" drive then formating the drive outside of windows
could very well kill your XP installation!

I would strongly suggest removing the second HD, booting from the XP CD and
doing a maintenance reinstall before formating! After performing the
maintenance try booting your system several times without the 2nd drive
connected to insure it will boot. At that point you should be able to
format your 2nd drive using a third party program or probably under windows.

FWIW,
Len