format

croggy · 16 Jun 2009 at 13:31

I added an extra drive to my dell XPS m1730 laptop. A OCZ vertex 30gb. I installed win 7 on the new drive. I want to format my old 200gb harddrive but it won't let me in the disk management. Will i need to use dos to format the hdd or some other program? freeware?

Thanks

Paul11 · 16 Jun 2009 at 13:35

so you put the new drive in as your main drive and put your old drive as a second drive ?

what does it say when you try to format it?

croggy · 16 Jun 2009 at 13:36

I put the new drive as my main drive and my old drive is my second drive

UKDTweak · 16 Jun 2009 at 13:39

What drive letters are assigned to the two drives, if the old drive is still C: then you have a little problem...

croggy · 16 Jun 2009 at 13:43

the new drive is C:, the old one is D:, the new drive has windows 7 and boots fine from it, the old drive has vista on it, everytime the computer boots it asks which os to boot, vista or 7. Disk management reconises the D: as a system disk and doesn't allow to format and not to delete oem partitions on it, i want the drive to be formatted partitions and all. I just wondered how to go about it.

Thanks

UKDTweak · 16 Jun 2009 at 13:51

So you had the old drive connected as a secondary boot drive with Vista installed on it when you installed Windows 7.
This means your boot manager knows vista is on the other drive and the other drive is seen as a system drive...

As far as I know, the only way around this is to remove the old drive, re-install w7 on the new drive, then once up and running, reconnect the old drive and format it with something like Gparted (free) or Partiton Magic (not free).

croggy · 16 Jun 2009 at 13:57

Ahh ok that makes sense. Will Gparted not work without me reinstalling windows 7? Could i connect it to my main computer and format it?

UKDTweak · 16 Jun 2009 at 13:58

It will allow you to format the old drive, however you will need to amend the boot manager so its nolonger looking for the Vista install.

croggy · 16 Jun 2009 at 13:59

How do i do that? or is it just easier to reinstall windows 7?

UKDTweak · 16 Jun 2009 at 14:02

I have not really used Windows 7 so know little about it's boot manger, hopefully somebody else can help there, or try google.

Look for BCDEDIT - Boot Configuration Data Store Editor

Vista used the same one I think?

Paul11 · 16 Jun 2009 at 14:12

i dont think you have to re-install

something like partition magic must be able to do it

Elfmeister. · 16 Jun 2009 at 15:13

Becareful, I had Xp and 7 dual booting and when I deleted the Xp off my main HDD, Windows 7 wouldnt boot.

It gave a similar message to NTRL is missing but with differnet letters, which I guess is the Windows 7 boot manager.

mick4545 · 16 Jun 2009 at 19:12

I regularly format my C drive to reinstal windows. I wipe it first from an Acronis boot disk, then a clean instalation of Windows or Acronis backup.

So a boot from an Acronis disk would enable the OPs D drive to be wiped then formated.