Will Arnold Posted February 10, 2006 Report Share Posted February 10, 2006 when i go to format my C drive, it says 'windows cannot format this drive. quit and disc untilities or other programs using this drive, and make sure no other windows is showing the content of this drive. try again...'but that happens when there is no other program running/window open what do i have to do to make it format? thanks!! Will Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted February 10, 2006 Report Share Posted February 10, 2006 What version of windows are you planning on installing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Arnold Posted February 10, 2006 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2006 What version of windows are you planning on installing?i'm running xp at the momentand yer, i will re-install it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RicH_87 Posted February 10, 2006 Report Share Posted February 10, 2006 are you trying to format the drive simply by going onto it in 'my computer' and clicking format?if so, that won't work, you can't format a drive that windows is running off for obvious reasons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted February 10, 2006 Report Share Posted February 10, 2006 If your wanting to reformat as in reinstall windows.Just bung the xp disk in and boot your computer up. You should get the option to format the disk in the blue screen stage of setup. Theres no need to format it before hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomm Posted February 10, 2006 Report Share Posted February 10, 2006 Just put the Windows CD in the drive and restart. It should load off the CD and ask you if you want to format c: and load Windows etc etc. You backed everything up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Arnold Posted February 10, 2006 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2006 hmmmm, i have wacked the windows xp CD in, restarted windows, and it just let me log on as normal if i put a windows 98 start up FLOPPY in, will it let me start up on that? worth a try? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Cox Posted February 10, 2006 Report Share Posted February 10, 2006 take the cd out of the drive, reboot the computer, and go into the bios settings (press delete or something(it should say somewhere) change it to boot from disk and save it, put the cd in and reboot and hey prestoBen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The enchanted broomstick Posted February 10, 2006 Report Share Posted February 10, 2006 If you can boot your computer in DOS mode then you can format the hard drive. I think its the F8 key you need to push during the boot up of your computer, then choose the DOS command. I'm not entirely sure if this feature is available on XP installed computers but i recently did it on a laptop running 98. Once your in DOS mode type in format X:\ ( 'X' being whatever the letter of your drive, normally C:\ ) Then hit the Y key to the next option.stu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Cox Posted February 10, 2006 Report Share Posted February 10, 2006 nope theyve removed the dos mode from the f8 menu in xp Ben Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomm Posted February 10, 2006 Report Share Posted February 10, 2006 Yeah you can load Safe Mode Command Prompt Only, but it's just a Window that comes up and obviously as Windows is running, you can't format from there. I tried to do it the other day.Windows 98 boot disk might work I suppose, but there's no need. As manonamission said - change the first boot device to CD-ROM and you're set Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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