[domer]

I installed a second drive in my computer to use as a storage drive for backup of the main HDD. It is an older IDE drive and is formatted as FAT32. I ran Norton Wipe to remove all the old data and operating system. How do I change the drive format so I can backup my XP OS and files? I tried doing it through My Computer, but get a message that it cannot format due the it being used by some other program or file. I have an F disk and started up in DOS mode, but "format E:\" generated a message that it was not a proper command.

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If you go to my computer, right click manage and look at disk management, does the drive show up there? If it does, right click on it (in the upper pane) an select format.

[austin_o]

If you go to my computer, right click manage and look at disk management, does the drive show up there? If it does, right click on it (in the upper pane) an select format.

[Tyger]

Often OEM drives have something copied onto them which can't be removed by ordinary erasing and formatting. In that case you have to write the drive to all zeros, make a new partition and format them. The maker of the disk may have downloadable software to do that.