formating c drive

**Hamza** · November 29th, 2003, 01:25 PM

I have three partitions on my 60 gig drive. c and d and g. on the c I have win2k and on the d i have win xp. g is empty at the mo.

I am trying to format c drive to clean it out and re install win 2003 server. this I am trying to do while i am in win xp.

I get the following error message

"Windows cannot format this drive. Quite disk utilites or other program that are usign this driver, and make sure that no window is displaying the content of this drive. Then try formating it again."

All windows are close and or anti virus is shut of while doing this format. but no joy.

HELP!!

thanks in advance

**EvilRick** · November 29th, 2003, 01:26 PM

You CANNOT format the system drive while you're in the OS.

You need to boot from a floppy/CD in order to do it.

**John Prophet** · November 29th, 2003, 01:59 PM

You are saying you r booted off the xp install on d partition and trying to format the c: which had the w2k install.

Hmmm...I guess it wont allow it because xp knows that some of its files are on the c: like its boot.ini file etc?

I imagine of you boot to a floppy and format c: that you should save the mbr or back it up or somethign there, lol...cuz the boot.ini and stuff will be erased. Maybe you have to make an ERD (emergency repair disk) before formatting.

Not sure but thats my guess.

JP

**Hamza** · November 29th, 2003, 01:59 PM

i'm in the xp system disk 2 driver c trying to format win 2k on the c driver. do I still need to boot from a floppy?

**Chuckiechan** · November 29th, 2003, 02:02 PM

I think you would put your Win03 server disk in your CD rom, and boot from there. You can either do this in the bios by making it the first boot device, or you may have a boot option at start up.

Either way, booting from the cd should allow you to format and install in one operation. (Obviously, you will delete everything on the disk).

Edit: If you parititioned using PM or something, you can format your "C" drive there and make it "active" and then boot into "C" and install your OS.

Edit 2: Lets slow down a second... First, Each OS stands alone on its own parition. You need a "blank" formatted partiton to load your OS on. You cannot get there though another OS. Think of your partition as a mini hdd standing alone. Treat it as such. Then when you are done, you can choose which OS to boot into, by picking and choosing which one to make "active" for any given boot - up.

**Hamza** · November 30th, 2003, 11:41 AM

well thanks for that. it's as chuckiechan (cheers cuck) says, when I bootup using the win2003 server disk for installation, I get the option of formating the disk before install. It was simple.

Looks I send out a thread before I really need to. Need to slow down abit me thinks!!

Thanks for all you help chaps!

Does anyone know ow to close a thread???