Won't let me format drive

[Guest]

I have a Windows XP Pro, Vista, and Ubuntu Linux triple-boot system. In
Windows XP, there are 3 partitions. C:/ for XP, E:/ for Vista, and F:/ for
Documents. Of course there are 2 more linux partitions that cannot be seen by
Windows. The C:/ and E:/ partitions are both NTFS, but the F:/ partition is
FAT32 and I created it using a Linux partition tool from a Linux boot disk,
when I was installing Ubuntu Linux. I want to reformat the partition F:/ to
NTFS and currently, there are no files in the drive, it is empty. **Remember,
all these partitions are part of one physical SATA drive**

I went to My Computer and right-clicked on F:/ and chose Format. I chose
NTFS for the format and "Default Allocation size". The total size of the
partition is 10.2GB. Then I chose th Quick Format option and clicked Format.
A warning came and I clicked OK. Then a error message came up saying
"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 the
contents of the drive. Then try formatting again.". I had no windows open. I
also tried doing it without Quick Format, still no luck. I tried restarting
the computer too. No luck. Anyone know a solution?

Thanks

 

[Rock]

I have a Windows XP Pro, Vista, and Ubuntu Linux triple-boot system. In
Windows XP, there are 3 partitions. C:/ for XP, E:/ for Vista, and F:/ for
Documents. Of course there are 2 more linux partitions that cannot be seen
by
Windows. The C:/ and E:/ partitions are both NTFS, but the F:/ partition
is
FAT32 and I created it using a Linux partition tool from a Linux boot
disk,
when I was installing Ubuntu Linux. I want to reformat the partition F:/
to
NTFS and currently, there are no files in the drive, it is empty.
**Remember,
all these partitions are part of one physical SATA drive**

I went to My Computer and right-clicked on F:/ and chose Format. I chose
NTFS for the format and "Default Allocation size". The total size of the
partition is 10.2GB. Then I chose th Quick Format option and clicked
Format.
A warning came and I clicked OK. Then a error message came up saying
"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 the
contents of the drive. Then try formatting again.". I had no windows
open. I
also tried doing it without Quick Format, still no luck. I tried
restarting
the computer too. No luck. Anyone know a solution?

Did you try it from disk management? What about from disk management within
Vista?