formatting a hard drive.

Hi,
basically i want to format a hard drive, which is in the NTFS form.

I have 2 hard drives (40b, 1.2gb) atm win2kpro is installed on the 40gb, while win2k datacentre is installed on the 1.2gb. In windows you can format the drive by just right-clicking on it etc. I have done this many times with the 1.2gb, however i want to format the 40gb from the 1.2gb. this is causing problems.

I click format, says this will erase all data. hit yes, and abotu 2seconds later says

Quote:

---

Windows cannot format this drive. Quit any disk utilities or other programs that are using this drive, and make sure that no window is displaying the contents of the drive. Then try formatting again.

---

I have some files copied across from the 40gb (the one i am trying to format) but would that cause this problem?

I have a floppy drive, downloaded some boot disk thing from www.bootdisk.com but even an fdisk, and looking for non-dos partitions wouldnt find it.

I really need to format this drive, can anyone help?
Thanks
Will.

So you're booted off the 1.2GB Datacentre drive atm ?

Where is the page file located ? 1.2 GB is rather small.

can ya not boot from the windows XP CD? and format the 40gb via the setup screens?

I am booted from the 1.2gb, what is the page file? in the boot up it asks whether i want win2k pro, or win2k datacenter. the 1.2gb is only for a short time while my 40gb is being RMA'd.

If i boot from the win2k CD, i can indeed format. but then it straight away installs the new files. (else i have to delete partition which is just one click on a button, and i does trust it has done it properly.)

I have just downloaded some boot disk thing from www.bootdisk.com so ill try that

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by blockers

I am booted from the 1.2gb, what is the page file? in the boot up it asks whether i want win2k pro, or win2k datacenter. the 1.2gb is only for a short time while my 40gb is being RMA'd.

If i boot from the win2k CD, i can indeed format. but then it straight away installs the new files. (else i have to delete partition which is just one click on a button, and i does trust it has done it properly.)

I have just downloaded some boot disk thing from www.bootdisk.com so ill try that

---

The pagefile is for the virtual memory. Windows allocates an amount by default, if you drive is too small it most likely reallocates to the next available drive and if it has done this it may explain why you have not been able to format the 40gig in windows.

IIRC WIN 2K requires 2 gig minimum disk space, you're well below that and it like I have mentioned reallocated some of the pagefile to your 40gig.

If you format the 40gig in Windows setup you may find the Datacenter may not bootup without the pagefile.

Ok, i have decided that the bootdisk website is actually crap. It cant see any of my drives (2xhdd, 1xcd) and when in fdisk it shows a non-dos partition has a minus number (-257) which i dont really want to do anything with.

Ill try the CD again, see if i can find a way of formatting

need to boot with a win98 or such disk, run a decent fdisk program, and delete the non-dos partition (ie the ntfs one), then you can go create a primary partition, and format it to fat32 :)

mark

Paragon Disk Manager will do the trick, this thing will format anything.

Version 6 or 7 out now, but V5.0, which does the job just fine, is a common freebie on Magazine 'free' CD's and DVD's.

If you want I can host a small version of it in zip file format.

Just unzip file, load all contents to floppy disk, then boot with it.

From then on, it's fairly self-explanatory.