help w/ formating hard drive

D

detuned6

Metal dude
I am trying to format my audio drive (my 2nd internal hard drive used for audio only) When I go into the computer management and right click on the drive, the format option is grayed out(un selectable)
I have never reformated a drive before, so i dont know what to do now. I am running XP home. Any help would be killer.
Thanks.
 
I just recently reformatted a drive myself, so I may be able to help you. When the computer starts up, you should see two options at the top of the screen saying "setup" and "boot", or something like that. I think you want to select boot, and make sure that beforehand your windows xp backup cd is in the cd drive. Then when the computer prompts you what to boot from, select the cd drive. The computer should then load something, and eventually ask if you want to repair windows, or install it or something. Select the repair option, and it should take you to a dos type configuration. Type "help" or something, and it should give you a list of commands. You want to have a look at the ones that deal with formatting, and then you can tell it to format the drive from there. Just make sure you know which drive it is.

Actually, ignore that for now. Just try running command, go to start/run/ and then type cmd. You can access the dos setup from here, and as long as the drive you are formatting is not the same one running windows it should work fine. Type "format /?" and you can see what exactly you will need to type to format your drive properly.

I hope this helps you in some way. I'm not a pro or anything, but having just done this myself I thought I had a valid reason to post.
 
detuned6 said:
I am trying to format my audio drive (my 2nd internal hard drive used for audio only) When I go into the computer management and right click on the drive, the format option is grayed out(un selectable)
I have never reformated a drive before, so i dont know what to do now. I am running XP home. Any help would be killer.
Thanks.
Click to expand...

Let me start by asking why you're formatting the drive. Is this a brand new drive that you're simply initializing, or is there something wrong with the drive? If the latter, stop right now and buy a replacement drive. It is almost unheard of for a modern drive to develop bad blocks without suffering a complete, catastrophic failure within a matter of days or weeks.
 
AGCurry said:
Umm, have you partitioned the drive yet? Can't format it until it's partitioned.
Click to expand...

I realize I'm being pedantic here, and that 99% of computer users probably use the terms incorrectly, but the term you're looking for there is "initialize", not "format".... I blame Microsoft for the confusion---not because it is necessarily their fault so much as because I like blaming them for everything wrong with computers today. :D

"Format" is more properly used to refer to creating sector structure on soft-sectored media. Most modern ATA drives don't even support a low-level format anymore. Initializing a disk refers to laying out filesystem structures within a partition. Were the drive not preformatted from the factory, it would be necessary to do so prior to being able to partition the disk, since you can't write a partition table onto a soft-sectored device without first writing a base track image with sector headers and stuff....

Also, it isn't strictly true that you have to partition a disk before initializing it. You don't technically have to have a partition table on a disk at all; it's possible to lay out a "whole-disk" partition scheme with a filesystem on it---a floppy disk, for example. I'm not 100% certain whether any modern computer could boot off such a device (though I've rooted NetBSD-mac68k off of one before)... but as a data drive, it should be possible.

Of course, the only way I can think of to create a partitionless drive with a FAT filesystem involves Mac OS X and initializing the filesystem from the command line, but.... :D

Just being pedantic as usual.
 
Ok, whatever is the techie term, I want to completly erase the hard disk. But I am having a hard time finding a "how too" info.
 
Right click on My Computer, select manage, select disk managment, right click on the disk, select format
 
Hold on now:

Does the drive even show up under, "My Computer", as a drive?

Lets back up:

I will assume the hard drive is correctly attached to the motherboard and power supply, using either an serial ATA cable or a proper ribbon cable. I need to know more specifics about how yours is connected to the motherboard, whether as a slave to the master drive, or what?

When the computer is powered up, does the drive feel or sound like it is spinning. If not, you have a problem.

Another consideration is whether you have even configured the jumpers on the hard drive itself to be recognized as a slave drive and how you have the drive connected to the motherboard?

How big is your hard drive? This is very important before getting started with helping you. First of all, the OS you are using may affect the way you want to format the drive (DOS or NTFS file system). Second, Windows XP may not fully recognize the total capacity of some larger hard drives, so that is a consideration. If that is the case, you won't be able to proceed, and a small downloadable file may be needed.

There are different ways to go about setting up the drive, but answer these questions first, then we will go from there.

I build computers and deal with these issues all the time.
 
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im old school ... i always do it from the dos prompt (dos? what the frick is that)

and my handy windows 98 boot disk..theres all kinds of handy stuff on there (windows 98?.. what the frick is that?)
 
Yes, I kind of like the old school way myself. Creating a boot disk using win 98, booting up to the floppy, then "fdisk"ing and "format c"ing the drive that way. I like that way also.
 
altitude909 said:
Right click on My Computer, select manage, select disk managment, right click on the disk, select format
Click to expand...

I tryed that, but the "format" option is grayed out (unselectable)
 
Rick Shepherd said:
Does the drive even show up under, "My Computer", as a drive?
YES

I will assume the hard drive is correctly attached to the motherboard and power supply, using either an serial ATA cable or a proper ribbon cable. I need to know more specifics about how yours is connected to the motherboard, whether as a slave to the master drive, or what?
The drive I want to erase is a second internal drive that I put in, iIfollowed the directions to the T that was in the seagate manual.

When the computer is powered up, does the drive feel or sound like it is spinning. If not, you have a problem.
YES

Another consideration is whether you have even configured the jumpers on the hard drive itself to be recognized as a slave drive and how you have the drive connected to the motherboard?
Yes the jumpers are set.

How big is your hard drive?
120gigs, but in the poperties its says its 111 gigs

This is very important before getting started with helping you. First of all, the OS you are using may affect the way you want to format the drive (DOS or NTFS file system). Second, Windows XP may not fully recognize the total capacity of some larger hard drives, so that is a consideration. If that is the case, you won't be able to proceed, and a small downloadable file may be needed.
I am running XP home, and the the drive is NTFS file type.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I am not that Pc schooled, so i am unaware of the "terms"
 
I just put my application recovery disk in, started up and it claims that i would only be able to reformat my c drive, which is not the drive I want to erase. Im lost.
 
r u sure your not looking at your system drive? It will grey out the sysdrive, you should see all your disks under disk manager, if you cant format it then windows sees it as something its not supposed to reformat (which should not be the case) post a screen cap of the disk manager
 
Is this a brand spanking new drive? If not, what was previously loaded on it? I have seen cases where other OS's are loaded using different partitions that would make things more difficult.
 
PROBLEM SOLVED!!!
I had the page file set, and thats why it was not letting me format. Duh! :rolleyes:
Thanks to anyone who offered me info.
 
hummm .. well i didnt use my 98 boot disk then... i dont even know any more...

anyway.. glad you got it solved detuned6
 
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