wanting to format my diskdrive (c)?

Question

everytime i try to format the bloody diskdrive it keeps telling me that it can't cause some kind of utillities is use'in it i've tried closing every program on this pc but it still won't let me format it at this rate i'm gonna chuck it up the wall only sensible answers please

Answer 1

u need a bootable version of windows.
Restart your computer with the disk in the CD drive, you should then get the message "press any key to boot from CD"
If this doesnt happen, you need to go into the setup of the motherboard. Either by pressing f1 or del or esc depending on ur computer, it will tell you when u start up the computer. (when the screen is black with white writing). Then go to the boot options and choose the primary device as the CD drive, and then save and exit.
Your comp will then reboot and read the bootable CD.
Good Luck

Answer 2

Are you reformatting when you completely boot up the computer? Or are you doing a clean reinstall. If your not doing a clean install. Then try it. To do a clean install make sure your boot setup is set so the CD or the installation source is booted before yoru harddrive is. To change this setting go into your bios/setup when you turn on yoru computer, change it and then save the settings. Go find your Windows O/S CD/s then put it in... wait for a black screen that says. "Push and key to boot from CD" press the space bar or any other key you wish. and then wait for the installation files to copy. It might take a while. Then it should show a screen asking if you want to repair or install. press the enter key for install. Then press F8 to accept the license agreement. Then It'll scan for previous version of windows. You should come to a partition screen. You then dlt all the partition by pressing D and then pressing what they tell you to confirm it. Then you press the key it tells you to to install windows on yoru hd. Choose NTFS on the next screen press enter to continue. And then when you get to a screen that looks like this http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPpro5setup.jpg Then you wait for the formattation to complete and the installation. It might take a while maybe an hour depending on yoru hd speed. After it finishes it shoudl restart the comp itself. This and then the "Press any key will show". DO NOT press any key. just wait for about 30 seconds and it should boot windows up. Then you set up your computer jsut like you did when y ou took it out of the box. Or just follow this link to learn how to reinstall. http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

Answer 3

Try booting the PC from a windows 98 start-up disk then at the A prompt type "fdisk",when fdisk loads select option 3 then from the next menu select option 1 and try deleting the main petition, once that is deleted. re-start the PC from the windows 98 start-up disk and the at the A prompt type format c: If that wont work i don't know what to suggest, hope that helps

Answer 4

If windows runs from drive c it won't let you format it as windows is running from it, only way to do this would be to reinstall windows and format at the same time.

If windows runs on a different drive then you may be able to format the c drive by booting in safe mode or by getting a utility that boots from cd or floppy

Answer 5

format your stress by applying rebooting along with your abode windows CD interior the stress and booting from CD. in case you think of your stress become corrupted as a consequence of an endemic do an entire format, if no longer then do a "speedy format". you may format by applying typing fdisk in dos shell yet that's no longer possibly neccessary.

Answer 6

If using windows xp then try this site before formatting for step by step guide.

http://www.windowsxpprofessional.windowsreinstall.com/installxpcdoldhdd/indexfullpage.htm

hope this helps as you never gave a lot of info to go on