Silly question about formating a HDD!!

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Hi everyone, this question is indeed silly especualy comming from a guy who has been building pc's for a while!

My issue is i cannot seem to re format a partition containing local system files(windows xp OS installed).

On my pc, i have a 1tb hdd which contains my main OS of windows 7 and i have a seperate hdd with a windows vista partition on it from my previous OS i was using before. i now wish to delete this partition and format it so i can use it for storage but it doesnt allow me to do so under computer management in Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Administrative Tools

i know i could probably just boot from an OS disk and probably delete it from there but is there not an easier solution?

i even tried going into my computer and right clicking on teh vista partition but it keeps saying it cant format it.

[Zak33]

In Vista or XP you'd do this

Right Click My Computer and choose MANAGE
Double click on Storage
Double click on Disk Management

and then when yuo see the disk (be CAREFUL to get the right one) right click on the partition and delete it (lower part of the screen)

[Pob255]

/\ What he said, or disconnect all the hard drives so only then one you want to repartition is pluged in, boot on an xp cd, go through the install up to the point of formatting, delete all the partitions and reformat, then turn off the pc before going any thurther.

Remember by repartitioning you'll have to reformat tus wipeing anything on the other partitions.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

In Vista or XP you'd do this

Right Click My Computer and choose MANAGE
Double click on Storage
Double click on Disk Management

and then when yuo see the disk (be CAREFUL to get the right one) right click on the partition and delete it (lower part of the screen)

tried this and got a error saying windows cannot delete the active system partition on this disk

guess i got to boot from cd and go from their i suppose

[jim]

EDIT: This is in reference to a deleted previous post about another commonly used bootable CD

Or try UBCD4Win, which has the added benefit of being legal.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

ahh well, now my windows 7 partition wont boot now! i deleted the old partition containing vista(opps it was vista i had before not xp as originaly stated,) using the xp boot disk i had lying around. after i deleted the partition i then exit the xp setup and now it says "reboot and select proper boot device"!

i checked my boot priorities in BIOS and its set to boot from hdd first. i even took out the blooming hdd containing the original xp and still no joy!

[amjedm]

Could there have been some Win 7 system files in the partition you deleted?

Although I'm typing this from a Win 7 PC, I've not played around with it much, is it possible to do a repair?

[j.o.s.h.1408]

i'l try and pop in the windows 7 disk and see what happens if i hit the repair feature. no there is no windows 7 stuff on the partition i deleted. That partition i deleted is on a complete different hdd then the one running win 7.
i have a 1tb hdd running win 7 and various other partitions for storing stuff.

i then have a 500gb which had vista installed before plus various partitions made for storage again.

The orginal issue is that i was able to delete the partitions from the 500gb fine but when it came to deleting the vista partition, it wont let me

[arthurleung]

It didn't let you delete for a reason.
The Windows bootloader is on your old partition and you deleted it.

This is a very common problem when you connected more than 1 HDDs during Windows setup. Windows will put the bootloader to whichever drive it see fits (usually disk0, which could be a different disk than the one you're installing Windows 7 on)

[j.o.s.h.1408]

well its not their anymore as i have deleted it LMAO. ok looks like a nice long reinstall of vista then

Wife is pissed at me for fooking up my pc(which she uses for her studies) so its going to be a late night for me then

[Pob255]

Yes, that's why I said about removeing all HDD's execpt the one you plan on fiddleing with.
I also do the same when installing an OS.

You should be able to do a windows repair, remember dissconect ALL the hard drives execpt the one the OS is on before doing the repair.

[jim]

Don't reinstall the OS if you can avoid it, you should be able to run an automated bootloader repair off the disk - it's extremely quick and easy.