What does this mean in DOS?

Question

Im trying to use DOS to format and when it says ''warning do u want to wipe your drive'' when i press Yes it says ''format canot be run beacause volume is in use by another process. ALL OPEN HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID. would you like to force dismount on this volume?'' i then type Yes and it says 'cannot lock drive volume is stil in use'

What is happening?

ive got a windows XP cd and its not working booting from that, so thats why im using DOS so how would i boot and use DOS without being on C:?

Answer 1

you can't format a drive you are actually logged into. you need to boot from a floppy and type format c:

you can't be on C: and format c:

Answer 2

Since the command prompt in windows is just a program in windows and not a seperate OS you wont be able to format your drive that way. You need to go into the BIOS or use F-10 to do a one time boot from disk and then format that way.

Answer 3

You can't format the active drive while Windows is still running on that drive. Use a boot diskette or installation cd and format from there.

Answer 4

Try this. Make a bootable cd, copy dos to it. Boot from the cd, then use the format command from the cd dos.
This may not be the only way to do it but it should work.

Answer 5

Windows protects your nfts drive and locks it down so you cannot make certain major changes to the drive. Formatting is one of them.

Try using the Windows XP CD to format the drive.

Answer 6

You will have to boot from a floppy or CD disk most likely. When Windows is running, it protects all open handles to the drive.

Answer 7

since your using windows on your hard drive you cant use the dos prompt to delete and format.