Hi,
having a mare re formatting a hard disk. I have gone in to promt, am on the c: directory, i type format c:, get the normal Y/N after the warning.
I then get a message stating "format cannot run becasue this volume in 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 dismount on this volume? Y/N."
I am not sure what this message means and if i press Y or N i get the same message of "cannot lock the drive. the volume is still in use"

I have no programs running. OS is XP pro, but C: is partitioned with NT server. Any ideas?
Thanks

 

are u using a boot disk? you will not format a c: drive from the dos prompt. get your self an xp boot disk, xp will create one for ya. whack it in the a: drive and reboot. once you have got to the dos prompt type format c: and then it should start to format and then verify.

hope this helps

big sinky

 

How do i get XP to create a boot disk for me?

 

Are you still in Windows though?

bootdisk.com

Si

 

I have download the boot disk from bootdisk.com, but when i start my other machine with this boot disk in i get "file \biosinfo.inf could not be loaded. the error code is 512" setup cannot continue press any key to exit

 

Errr, hello?

Sorry, not my strongest side, but the boot loader stuff such as ntldr, boot.ini and io.sys are resident on the boot drive or active partition, I can't remember whether either or both apply, but I think that is always c: with NT4/2K/XP, I think you cannot format that puppy because of that. Has been ages since last playing with dual boot/boot loaders for me....

Someone clear this up please

Cheers,

Nick

 

If the boot disk creation commands are the same in XP as 98 you can simply make a boot disk from typing 'sys_c:_a:'(where _ is a space) in the command prompt, this will copy all the system files onto your floppy and should boot the system from the floppy, also make sure BIOS is booting from floppy at some stage, if it dos'nt read the floppy from boot change all the boot device's to floppy, but don't forget to change them back after...

You should the be able to format the drive, if it ask's you to lock the drive just type 'lock c:'and then try it again...

HTH,

John.

 

But, if he has XP on the D Drive and goes to wipe c, he is prob going to lose all chance of booting xp back up without running the repair install afterwards is what I am getting at.

Cheers,

Nick

 

I thought that he wanted to get rid of what ever is on c:, did'nt think to ask if he wanted to get rid of the OS, but yeah it will kill of XP unless it is dual booting and XP is installed on another partition...

Laters.

 

Thanks for all the replies. I have have no managed to reformat my hard disk. a little bit of bodging on the boot disk, caopying a file from here and there sort of thing!! Not honestly too sure how I have done it but it is working (at the moment!!) and running nice and smooth.
Again thanks for all the help and ideas.
Thommo