format

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul Rutten
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Paul Rutten

I am trying to format my D: drive and i consistently get
a message that says;---- 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.----
This is very lame as I know there is nothing else using
that drive. I have no programs open and have even
disabled all utilities in msconfig before restarting.
Only to get the same message time and again. I use this
drive for temp video storage and want to format the drive
whenever just to clear all the space. Norton and
Microsoft have offered me the revolving door so I need
somebody's help. Thanks.
 
Jupiter,

I have two 80 GB Hard drives, one for the OS and programs
(C drive) and one is for nothing but temporary video
editing work and storage (D drive). I thought that
Norton, in it's infinite wisdom, was somehow taking over
the drive and not allowing me to format. But I did
uninstall Norton and the problem still exists. I have
been all through the Win XP Disk Management and for
example when I right click on the D Drive, format is an
inactive choice in the drop down menu. Actually the same
for the C drive. So somehow I have been locked out of
this even though I am signed in as administrator. This
is very strange as the drive is just a simple storage
bank. No partioning or anything, just cannot format it.
I want to do this whenever I have removed the video that
I have been working on so as to start fresh with a nice
clean hard drive for new video work. The ambiguity of
software is the biggest reason why I just turn off the
computer and go do other things. But the truth is that I
need a solution so that I can do what I need to. Thanks
for your suggestions. Paul
 
If Paul has XP Home, he won't be able to log in as Administrator unless he
reboots into safe mode (the account is not offered as a logon using default
settings of OS in normal mode).

One other thing for Paul to try is to go into Disk Management and delete the
drive letter. It will probably complain that the drive is in use and won't be
able to be dismounted until after the system is rebooted. After a reboot,
whatever had locked him out should not be able to lock the drive since it won't
have a drive letter assigned to it. He should then be able to format or
partition it as he likes.

Paul
 
Just a thought, you don't happen to have your Pagefile set to your D: drive
do you?
 
That is one reason I suggested trying to delete the drive letter. If he has a
pagefile on the drive, XP won't let him delete it. Instead he would see a
warning saying that the drive letter cannot be deleted because of the pagefile.

Paul
 
That is one reason I suggested trying to delete the drive letter. If he has a
pagefile on the drive, XP won't let him delete it. Instead he would see a
warning saying that the drive letter cannot be deleted because of the pagefile.

Paul
 
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