I tried to format my hard drive by right clicking the c: drive then clicking format. At the end, it says "Windows cannot format this drive. Quit any disk utilities or other programs that are using this drive, and make sure that no windows is displaying contents of the drive. Then try formatting again.". This happens all the time.
View 2 Repliesi have been working on my friends computer for about a day and the problem is he has one hard drive with 2 operating systems. now the hard drive is not partitioned for both 0S when you click MY COMPUTER it only shows the local C:/ drive as for having another OS would have shown D:/ the problem i am having is how do i get rid of the second OS without deleteing his primary one? another question is if i do a windows XP REPAIR i dont remember if it saves all that they have or does it erase everything
View 1 Replies View RelatedA while back a friend partitioned my hard drive into three different partitions. the one I use is now almost full and I would like to merge the almost-full partition with the next partition, which is completely empty. Can anyone help me with the steps to do that? Thanks in advance. I have a windows xp system with the big service pak installed also. the pc is a dell dimension 4300 with a 1.6 ghz processor and 513 mb of RAM.
View 5 Replies View Relatedi have an Acer aspire 5630 laptop, running windows xp media edtion. It has a 110 GB hard drive which Acer partitioned in 3 parts. The first one im not concerned about its almost 5 GB and called PQ service (EISA configuration. the other 2 are just over 53 GB one has my xp the other was formatted to NTFS, I found I could delete the partition and then from command from extend the main partition typing diskpart, list volume, select the volume i want to extend by typing select volume 1 or whatever then type extend with the amount or if i leave it blank it should extend the partition to the full drive. but when i type extend I get the following message. Diskpart failed to extend the volume. please make sure the volume is valid for extending. And i desperately need the extra space.
View 8 Replies View RelatedHow do I most efficiently and with the least chance of data loss salvage the data from the partitioned hard drive? By using the enclosure or by hooking the drive up to the old box as a slave? And is the remaining OS on C: of the partitioned drive likely to cause any problems
View 4 Replies View Relatedtake me through reformatting my hardrive
View 7 Replies View RelatedI have decided to reformat my hard drive. I've transferred my files to my backup disk. I need very specific instruction on this process. I could use details regarding process itself and any precautions or hints. I am running Windows XP Professional X64.
View 5 Replies View RelatedI have a gateway amd athlon 1.10 Ghz running microsoft windows server 2003 datacenter edition. The os was installed by my former roommate, without my permission, and I believe it may not be a legal copy. I've been trying to reformat the hard drive and install a copy of Windows XP Professional, which is legal, but it tells me wrong dos version whenever I try to do this. My former roommate also partitioned the drive, also without my permission. I would like to remove the partition as well, but don't really know how.
View 2 Replies View Relatedbasically something happened to my computer so i want to reinstall windows xp again. usually it starts up and then when it should normally go to the login screen, it shows a blank black screen. so i tried to boot it from the windows xp cd, and yeah it says 'press any key to boot from cd', or something like that. so i do it and i know after it boots from the cd i can choose to reformat the hard drive...but it freezes every time i press the key to make it reboot from the cd. i haven't seen any online tutorials that go over this..
View 3 Replies View RelatedOk, I am just about to get up enough enough nerve to reformat my hard drive and have a couple of questions (for now).After reformtting and before beginning the install of XP Pro, do I need to disconnect periphials (printer, scanner, etc)?Do I stay connected to the internet via cable modem and router or should those be disconnected?I have 2 computers networked. Will resetablishing the network happen automatically or will windows walk me through it, or
I have terrible errors in my system. I run Windows XP. It is to the point that my internet is very very slow as are my programs I run. I have tried everything suggested. Microsoft now suggested that I do a full reformat, reinstall & clean of my hard drive. (Start all over from scratch).Can someone lead me into the right direction that explains step by step how I do this? I have backups of most all my programs and everything I think I will need.
View 12 Replies View Relatedwe've got a bit of a problem. Our computer came with Windows XP Home Edition already installed by Dell. Just recently my internet stopped working, and my mom changed the administrator password and made the main account non-administrator. Problem? SHE FORGOT THE PASSWORD!So, now, we can't install/uninstall anything and we need to know how to completely reformat our hard disk and uninstall windows so that we can start over fresh. We plan to reinstall Windows with a complete Windows XP Home Edition CD that we purchased separately. We also have another CD that came with the computer, but we're not sure if it is a complete Windows XP Home Edition installation CD. *NOTE* My mom is working with me on this, and she's more computer savvy than me. She's going to be the one reading the instructions. I just type faster
View 14 Replies View RelatedI tried to do a search but I keep getting a blank screen for some reason.I need to reformat my hard drive but the original recovery CD I got from Toshiba is long gone. I don't really have time to wait for another to come in the mail, as I have work to finish within the next day or so. Is there a way to download the necessary drivers and whatnot from Microsoft and burn my own recovery CD to use while reformatting?
View 6 Replies View Relatedok I was thinking about reformatting. If I just took out my old hard drive and put a new one in, then I could just install a fresh version of windows? Also how would I do like 1 part of it for the os, the other part for my files. This wasy i can just reformat the windows part when i wanna do it again.
View 2 Replies View RelatedI want to reformat the hard drive on a Toshiba satellite laptop that has Intel celeron processor and Window XP home OS. Could somebody please guide me through the process step by step? I would also really appreciate it if someone could tell me what all I would need before I start the reformatting process.
View 4 Replies View RelatedI have two hard drives(40 GB & 160GB both internal) installed in my system. Earlier I had installed windows XP on the first hard drive (40GB) and was using second hard drive as additional storage. I had partitioned my second hard drive into 5 partitions P, Q, R, S, T. Recently I reformatted my first hard drive and reinstalled windows XP. However this has also affected my second hard drive. Now Windows shows only two drives C: (my first hard drive) and D: (second hard drive) as only one partition each. Moreover it is not showing any data on the second hard drive. I want to get back my parition info and data on the second hard drive. I thought that formatting my first drive will not affect second drive and therefore didn't take back up of the second drive. What shall I do to get back my data and partition info.
View 4 Replies View RelatedI'm running XP with a downloaded, update SP2. I got a virus around Christmas and now want to reformat the drive and XP won't let me.It says I cannot dismount the drive to start the process.Something is using it?I just want to learn from my mistakes and start over. Also can I install XP from the discs from my other machine to this one? I do not have a copy of the original OS disc.
View 6 Replies View RelatedWhile installing Windows XP, the power went out after about 40% of it had been installed. Now, when I turn on the computer, I get a message that says, "NTLDR is missing. press CTRL+ALT+DEL to reboot." Well, this becomes a never-ending cycle. So, I inserted the Windows XP cd in the cd-rom drive and booted the computer up. I tried re-installing XP and repairing XP. Neither works. So, what I would like to do is completely wipe out my hard drive (nothing I want to save) and start all over.
View 4 Replies View RelatedI had a duel boot system running Windows 2000 and linux, I decided to get rid of linux for a while but stupid me just went in to fdisk and deleted the linux partition. Now my 80 gig hard drive only shows as 40 and I can't think of anyway to get it back without reformatting the entire hard drive
View 3 Replies View RelatedIs there a way to partition the primary disk on a computer without reformatting?A computer that I inherited (HP Pavillion) has a 120Gb hard drive partitioned into two sections C drive 104Gb NTFS primary D drive 7Gb FAT32 recovery I would like to split the primary into two sections, if possible without reformatting
View 3 Replies View Relatedhaving my laptop returned from service I found my Bios messed with where when I would start my computer but Bios wouldn't find my hard drive or an OS I found that my system was set to RAID instead of ATA. After resetting it back to ATA it boots up fine. However I wanted to reformat and start clean.I placed my XP disk in, reset my BIOS to read my optical drive first and no problems.However every time I get to partition drive all I see is "Unknown Device" If I press any key I get a blue screen of death. Most times it's the 0X0000008E.
View 9 Replies View RelatedI'm trying to reformat an Acer Laptop 120GB hard drive that had problems before with VISTA so I'm using my copy of Win XP Pro, (I own the Volume disk, and have used it several times with no problems). When I try and do a reformat it hangs at 80%.I've used MEMtest86, no erorrs, I've tried Ultimate bootCD, no probs, I've tried SystemRescueCD, no help. I ran CHKDSK from a DOS prompt no problems. I ws going to replace the MBR but it says that I might not be able to access my drive if it doesn't work...is that true ?Right now I'm trying a MS-DOS FORMAT from a command prompt and its taking forever. After 20 minutes its only at 1%.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI recently tried to reinstall windows xp, but the installation was interrupted and left me with a partially installed windows on my hard drive. Now, whenever I try to install again, it gives me the error: NTLDR is missing. I made a msdos boot disc to reformat my drive such that I can try installing windows again. However, I have two hard drive (one for windows and programs and one for storage) and I don't know which one is which letter. How can I find this information, so that I don't accidentally wipe my storage drive?
View 6 Replies View RelatedXPpro with two HDs, CDr/w and DVDr/w.(D AND (E are (were?) a 20G drive which I partitioned over a year ago. This morning I came across a 4G drive in an old box. (really). Being a curious type I pulled the power and ribbon leads from the DVD and plugged them into the 4G HD, after setting the jumper to slave.Then switched on. A dos line appeared saying 'automatically configuring an F: drive' After which Windows appeared to boot up normally. Except that 'My Computer' showed no (D The 4G (F drive showed as not formated. So... I removed the 4G and replaced the leads back to the DVD. My Computer' shows 3.5 floppy Local Disk(C FRSTHAFOLD(D 9G abt Notice NO (E
Not only that but my D drive is missing lots of files and folders wont open. It seems that the partitioning has been forgotten! I have checked what bios settings there are (not many on Compaq 5000) And the bios sees my main Crive and only one 20G disk I have a bad feeling about this Is there any way to get things back to normal?
i connected my external HDD to my system i copied some data but now i'm not able to open that drive i have partitioned the 160GB drive to 8 20GB drives bcoz i have very important data in that drive
View 9 Replies View RelatedUsing XP, I have moved the My Documents folder to a new drive "E". Seemed OK, but I was thrown by the fact I still have a "My Documents" folder listed under "Documents and Settings/myusername" In his folder, I also have folders for Cookies, Desktop, Favourites and Start Menu.
Q1. Should I delete this duplicate My Documents folder and or is it correct to leave it there as a copy (according to propertiesit is located on the C drive)
Q2. Should I move the other folders too?
I have also posted seperately a similarly related question about the program Folder
I recently decided to partition my basic HD so that I could have my audio applications and files on one partition (C) and and all my other crap on the other (E). Both partitions are using Windows XP. Now...I recently formatted partition (C) and reinstalled Windows on it, and suddenly the other partition changed its extension from (E) to (D) and was no longer available for me to log onto: Windows no longer asked me what installation I would like to log onto at startup. That was OK at first because I was still able to see all files that were on the computer while using dive (C) and save some of them. However, there was some data that was visible but screwed, especially the ones containing compressed material and this is really where all my important stuff was. Everything else worth saving could be transferred or copied onto (C), the working partition: wav files, mp3's, documents of any kind...etc.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have a friend who's computer has 4 partitions on it. He has no clue how they got there, and I have zero knowledge of partitions. His C drive has like 13gb and is full, his G drive has the most and I think it's like 76gb and then he also has an H and an I.
Someone who was "trying to fix it" copied the C drive and pasted it to all the other drives, which didn't do anything except, well, make copies of everything. I spent a couple hours and just went through folder after folder and made one "KEEP" folder and cut/pasted everything into it. He went and bought a portable hard drive and we'll move everything over to it for safe keeping while we try to get those partitions out.
My question is, would it just be easier to reformat the whole thing? I have all of his docs and pictures, which is the biggest thing for him. He has a Sony set, and has a repair disk and his WinXP number. I have a OEM WinXP disk, so should I just go into the bios, have the computer boot to the CD first, then do a repair or reformat? And at what point do I remove those partitions???
Is there a way to re-allocated drive space (from one partition to another) with re-installing XP? I have a C & D partitioned drive, with much to spare on D as my C drive is almost depleted (factory config). Can this be done 'live'?
View 2 Replies View RelatedI Think After Reinstalling Windows Xp A Created A Partition, That Now Wont Let Me Access My Files. Is This Possible? Can They Be Accessed?
View 3 Replies View RelatedI recently sent my computer for repair due to virus-related problems. Anyway, the repair person had to reinstall Win XP(Home) from scratch and told me that he had partitioned the drive (and without my permission!) in two: DBackup and CSystem (Backup consists of the files from the previous system). I notice that there is a duplication of files due to this partition. For example, song A would appear twice on Win Media PlayerCDocumentsandSettings/Owner/My Documents/MyMusic/SongA AND Dmydocbackup/MyMusic/SongA). I don't know if there are any duplication of other files yet. Plus, I realised during Disk Cleanup that the system's Temporary Internet Files is located in 'Backup drive' instead of 'System'. Shouldn't this folder be in the other drive i.e. system drive, since Backup is just,well, backup(of the old drive). The WINDOWS folder also appears in both drives.
I've never had partitioned drives so this is causing major headaches for me. If there is a need for me to un-partition my drives to clear the mess, can I do it without re-installing the whole system from the Cd? Sorry it's a long one How many times can you reinstall from the Cd before it cannot be used anymore (I hear there is a limit)