Ken Simmons re Formatting hard drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter vrsiler
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vrsiler

Previously I tried using the win2000 CD to format the hard
drive as you suggested but nothing happened after pressing
the D key. As I said in my previous post, I then tried
using the format function from the My Computer\C drive and
right clicking which shows the drive size, etc, and gives
the choice to format the disk. I tried that and received a
message that "windows cannot format this drive. Quit any
disk utilities or other programs that are using this drive
and make sure no window is displaying thle contents of the
drive. Then trly formatting again".
As far as I could tell I had no disk utilities open and
also no program files open. I have deleted almost
everything from the computer trying to solve this problem.
Is there a hidden file that might be open that could cause
this message?
I appreciate any help you can give me on this.
 
Start the Recovery Console
--------------------------

1. Insert either your Windows 2000 CD-ROM or the first Windows 2000
Setup boot disk into the proper drive, and then restart your computer.

2. Press a key to start Windows 2000 Setup from your CD-ROM, or follow
the instructions on the screen if you are using Windows 2000 Setup boot
disks.

3. At the Welcome to Setup page, press R to repair a Windows 2000
installation, and then press C to use the Recovery Console.

4. In the Recovery Console, press the number key for the Windows 2000
installation that you want to repair, and then press ENTER. Note that
if you press ENTER without pressing a number, the Recovery Console
quits, and your computer restarts.

5. When the Recovery Console prompts you for a valid administrator
password, type your administrator password, and then press ENTER.

6. At the command prompt, type "format <drive letter>:" (without the
quotation marks), where <drive letter> is the letter of the drive you
want to format. For additional information about switches that you can
use with the "format" (without the quotation marks) command, type
"format /?" (without the quotation marks), and then press ENTER.

7. When the format is complete, remove the CD-ROM or disk from the
drive, type "exit" (without the quotation marks) at the command prompt,
and then press ENTER to restart your computer.

Regards,

Ken Simmons

Microsoft Technical Support for Platforms and Business Applications
 
Try booting with a Win 98 Startup diskette, run FDisk and
re-format the partition that way. If you do it correctly
it will totally erase that partition's information, while
not affecting in any way the active partition. But
BEWARE!!! if you do this incorrectly you will erase the
entire HDD.
 
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