[JEISEN]

A box reading: 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.-comes up.

 

The slave drive does have XP on it-not sure if it's the same version XP as the C drive version-if that even matters. I just want everything off of this slave so I can back up my C drive to it. Thanks!

[Advertisements]

Hi JEISEN

It looks like the drive is currently in use, hence why Windows cannot format it. Can you right-click on My Computer and select Manage? From there, in the left pane, click on Disk Management and wait for the window to load completey (open it in full windowed mode). From there, if you could take a screenshot of it and post it here, it would be great. To take a screenshot, if you don't know how, simply click on the Prnt Scrn key, then open Paint and press Ctrl + V to paste the screenshot in it. Save the screenshot, then attach it to your next post.

[Aura]

Hi JEISEN

It looks like the drive is currently in use, hence why Windows cannot format it. Can you right-click on My Computer and select Manage? From there, in the left pane, click on Disk Management and wait for the window to load completey (open it in full windowed mode). From there, if you could take a screenshot of it and post it here, it would be great. To take a screenshot, if you don't know how, simply click on the Prnt Scrn key, then open Paint and press Ctrl + V to paste the screenshot in it. Save the screenshot, then attach it to your next post.

[JEISEN]

That was fast!

Attached Thumbnails

• 

[Aura]

I get tell that a lot
Which drive are you trying to format, the E: one?

[JEISEN]

Yep the E drive. I was going to mention I haven't used paint in a while. I like IrfanView. But a screenshot is a screenshot!

[Aura]

If you right-click on it, which options do you have? You'll need to "Delete" the volume in order to format it.

[JEISEN]

Sorry I was called away.  My right click options on E:  Open-Explore-Change Drive Letter and Paths-Format-Delete Partition-Properties-Help

All of this time and I never noticed (or clicked on) Manage.

Partition-that would be the recovery part  or Restore of the hard drive I'm guessin'?

[Aura]

You'll need to select "Delete partition" to free the space and therefore format it and create a new partition that is empty. This action isn't reversible, so be sure that you have nothing left on that drive before doing so. And are you talking about the partition on the right of the E: drive? If so, it looks like one. If you could assign it a letter and explore it, we could verify that.

[JEISEN]

Yes the Partition to the right. I could not find a way to give it a letter. That's all I ever did on this drive-nothing special. I never made any of my own Partitions. I just had a percentage for Recovery. Which is probably what that is.

[Aura]

Yes, you have to use the Disk Management Utility or diskpart to accomplish that kind of advanced operations on a drive. What's the status now, did you manage to do what you wanted to accomplish?

[JEISEN]

I wanted to wait until it finished so I wouldn't jinx it. I couldn't assign a Drive letter to new unallocated part. (I don't know how) Couldn't delete the FAT. I guess the "new" drive won't show up in My Computer until a Drive letter is assigned?

Attached Thumbnails

• 

[Aura]

What you have right now is "unallocated" space, which means, space on the drive that have not been assigned a file system yet. You can't assign a letter without formatting it in a proper file system yet. Right-click on the "Unallocated" space and select Create partition. From there, click on Next, leaving all the default informations (except the name of the partition if you want to change it) and once done, click on Finish. The drive should be automatically formatted, attributed a file system and a letter.

[JEISEN]

Thanks so much for your time and patience!! Before I got back here to read your post I found the Create Partition on my own. It didn't make it's own letter. I chose Z. As in "This is Z new drive!"

I thought the FAT partitioned part of the drive needed to be deleted because my C Drive didn't have one and it works great. But I left it alone. I will change the volume label at some point. It just reads New Volume. Thanks again!!

[Aura]

No problem JEISEN, the pleasure is mine If you ever encounter new issues with your hard drive, feel free to create a new thread and provide new information on the issue, and I, or another helper will gladly assist you.

On this, have a good evening

[JEISEN]