[mpcontrols]

Hello Geekstogo,

I installed a new hard drive about a year ago. I took the existing hard drive and installed it as a secondary (slave I guess). The secondary is now C:/. I use it for miscellaneous storage and backup. It has a partition on it called DISE_Backup (E:/). DISE:/ had all of the original files that were on it when it shipped from the factory. This could be used to completely restore the PC from scratch. I want to format this drive to get everything off because my virus scan software scans this one too and it takes for ever. Also, I don't need anything on it except the files I put there as backups. I don't want the partition (E:/) thats on there anymore either. I've done some reading and believe that Fdisk needs to be performed too. My primary drive is now D:/. I have Windows XP Pro as my Op System. I've used Geekstogo before and really appreciate your help. Thank you!

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fdisk is the old program with respect to windoze (still in use for Linux), Disk Management is the new way to deal with the disk.

Go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management. In there go
to Disk Management.

Normally the system drive is c:, but I suspect that the second disk is listed as c:, so the boot disk become d:.

Under the disk management program, you can delete the partition, create a new filesystem (often incorrectly called formating), etc.

[Kemasa]

fdisk is the old program with respect to windoze (still in use for Linux), Disk Management is the new way to deal with the disk.

Go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management. In there go
to Disk Management.

Normally the system drive is c:, but I suspect that the second disk is listed as c:, so the boot disk become d:.

Under the disk management program, you can delete the partition, create a new filesystem (often incorrectly called formating), etc.

[mpcontrols]

Kemasa,

Thank you for getting back to me so soon. I did what you said and was able to fomat the DISE_Backup (logical drive E:) on my secondary hard drive, which is drive C:. However, it didn't give me any options to format C:. The total drive size is 20GB with C: equaling 15GB and E: equaling 5GB. I want the whole drive to be 20GB and be known only as drive C:.

I tried something else and it didn't work either. From Disk Management, I selected C:, right clicking and selecting "explore", then when the contents of drive C: were displayed, I selected "file", then drive C: and then "format". I tried to format it this way, but it gave me an error message saying that "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 this drive, then try reformatting again". I closed all windows and only had the formatting window open on the desktop and it still wouldn't work.

Any ideas?

[Kemasa]

In the disk management tool, you should be able to right click and select delete partition to remove the partitions, then you can right click and create a partition.

You need to be careful since somethings might be confused.

The first thing I would do is to right click on the c: partition and select to change the partition, remove any partition selection and then reboot to see if that frees up the c name and that the boot disk becomes c:, then try deleting the partitions. You need to make sure nothing is using the partition, including any programs like Norton.

By deleting the partitons you will lose all the data you put there, so make sure that you back it up on some other disk first.

[mpcontrols]

I tried everything you suggested, but it doesn't allow me to change the C: drive to any other drive letter. I booted my PC in Safe Mode and deleted all of the files on it. I rebooted and tried to do the things you asked and it still won't let me. As I mentioned earlier, I was able to format the partition (E: drive) that was part of C:. The C: drive was my original hard drive and a new larger one was installed. The existing C: drive became the secondary. Can you forward my posting to someone else who might be able to help? Thank you.

[Kemasa]

Did you try removing all the partitions and then rebooting, then creating the partitions?

I can make some other suggestions, but it gets more complicated and so the simple should be tried first.

[Kemasa]

This is a duplicate thread, see:

http://www.geekstogo...62