formatting Q

caithomas44 · 15 Jul 2007 at 20:39

ok i have 2 250gb sata hard drives, one contains xp64 which i no longer use and the other ( the newer instalation) contains vista ultiamte 64bit.

how can i format the first hard drive? i have tried through rightcicking and formating... thorugh "disk manage" and device manager but neither will let me

help!!!!!

i only have about 20gb left on the vista drive because it contains all my music and a number of my dvd's i have copied so i can upscale them to my tv

Teaf · 15 Jul 2007 at 20:49

Boot from a floppy and format x:

marc2003 · 15 Jul 2007 at 20:53

did you setup dual boot? if you did, vista will have the files it needs to boot on the xp partition so you can't delete it.

or even if you didn't intentionally setup dual boot, sometimes windows does funny things during install depending on your disk setup and will write it's boot files where you don't want it to.

if this is the case then you're going to have to re-install windows i'm afraid.

get all the data safely on 1 disk. unlpug it. now run windows setup and partition and format it as you like. once windows is installed, plug the other drive back in and you'll have all your data.

marc2003 · 15 Jul 2007 at 20:55

flibby said:
Boot from a floppy and format x:

you're kidding right? :eek:

stickroad · 15 Jul 2007 at 21:20

Insert your XP Pro disc and boot from CD. And follow the on screen instructions.

marc2003 · 16 Jul 2007 at 00:02

stickroad said:
Insert your XP Pro disc and boot from CD. And follow the on screen instructions.

if disk management won't let you format a drive it's usually for a good reason. like it contains files windows needs to boot or maybe the pagefile. what you say will work but the OP might find his windows will be borked afterwards.

caithomas44 · 16 Jul 2007 at 15:52

marc2003 said:
did you setup dual boot? if you did, vista will have the files it needs to boot on the xp partition so you can't delete it.

or even if you didn't intentionally setup dual boot, sometimes windows does funny things during install depending on your disk setup and will write it's boot files where you don't want it to.

if this is the case then you're going to have to re-install windows i'm afraid.

get all the data safely on 1 disk. unlpug it. now run windows setup and partition and format it as you like. once windows is installed, plug the other drive back in and you'll have all your data.

thanks

this is what it contains..... i want to format D drive?

marc2003 · 16 Jul 2007 at 17:59

well like i said..... look at the d drive and what it says in brackets.... (system)

read my posts again for the solution.

caithomas44 · 16 Jul 2007 at 21:26

marc2003 said:
well like i said..... look at the d drive and what it says in brackets.... (system)

read my posts again for the solution.

nooooooooooooooo

i don't want to have to reload everything!!!! lol

marc2003 · 17 Jul 2007 at 02:51

well you're going to have to i'm afraid. what you want is a nice clean disk management where you can delete/format any partition you like.... like mine...