Format problems?

Question

I want to format my computer. But when I try to this message comes up:

Format can not run because the volume is in use by another process. Format may run if this volume is dismounted first. ALL OPENED HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID. Would you like to force a dismount on this volume?

Then when I said yes this message came up:

Cannot lock the drive. Volume is still in use.

What does this mean? and how do I fix it so I can format my computer?

Answer 1

if you have some programs like anti viruses ore Disk defragmenter you cannot Format your Drive because your drives will be checking with these Programs.
if you are ruining some file with another Programs like Multimedia Files you must First Close Those programs.
if you want format your Drive you can use some programs like Partition magic 8.0. If you buy a Bootable Version of partition magic you can come up with this program windows on your Computer Start-up and will format your drive without any Problem.

Answer 2

make a floppy boot disk , best if you can get one made with windows 98 then you will have all the utility files on that is needed to check the hard drive
scandisk
chkdisk
fdisk
format

place the floppy disk in the drive and reboot the computer.. at the dos prompt is a:\
type in
a:\chkdisk..... let it do the checkdisk
a:\scandisk ....let it scan the disk
then if you want two partition the hard drive
a:\ fdisk ...... to do this you need a little knowledge of harddrives

then to format the hard drive
type in
a:\format c: no back slash

if you can't get a 98 floppy boot disk made for you go to http://www.microsoft.com
click on downloads and look for floppy boot disk
happy new year

Answer 3

Follow Carling's steps, it's best not to format a hard drive while you are using a GUI operating system. Format from the command line using FDISK.

Answer 4

it means you are trying to format your hard drive while you are logged in and using the hard drive. You need to boot the machine from a CD or a floppy disk and run format on the hard drive that way.

It won't allow you to format the hard drive while windows is running.