(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...I can’t reformat my hard drive from the boot disc or CD from the DOS prompt. Can a drive be un-reformatable?
I have windows XP 5.1. Booting from the disk I get the message “can’t format this drive. Quit any disk utilities or other programs using this drive. Make sure no windows is displaying the contents” Booting from the CD and trying to reformat at the C: prompt I get the error message “Format cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Format may run if this volume is dismounted. All opened handles to this volume would then be invalid. Would you like to force a dismount on this volume, Y/N” Choosing yes does not work…
I have received messages that say something like kernel_data_error.
That’s about it, also is the correct command to format a C drive at the a: prompt “Format C:” ?
Thanks for your help,
the computer is a Dell 4300
Posted in Windows XP | 
Tags: boot, boot disc, Booting, disc, Disk, disk utilities, dismount, DOS, dos prompt, drive, error message format, format, hard-drive, message, reformat, volume, Windows XP
5 Responses to “I can’t reformat my hard drive from the boot disc or CD from the DOS prompt. Can a drive be un-reformatable?”
You can’t format the drive you’re using!!
Boot to a floppy and then format. If you just want to re-install XP, then you can do that by booting with the windows XP CD and selecting New installation. It should give you the option of repartitioning and reformatting.
Report this comment
Assuming you have a full version windows XP disc. The first thing you should do is go into your bios and change your boot order so the cd rom is the first to boot. With that being completed, put the disc in the cd rom and restart your system. As your system is starting up, it will tell you to push a button or it will boot as normal into windows. Once you are running from the XP disc, you can format and set your partitions before you install XP back on your system.
Report this comment
format c:/s /u
/s = system
/u = unconditional
Report this comment
If you are running Windows XP and the drive is partitioned with NTFS, Dos will not format or recognize that partition. NTFS is Windows only partition, old Dos just can’t handle it.
Run fdisk and delete the partition, just as good as a format.
Report this comment
MAke a bootable floppy
boot the PC from A:/
and do a format
eg:
format c:/s /u
/s = system /u = unconditional
Report this comment