i recently added a 1Tb HDD to my system and upgraded from windows vista to windows 7 and now im trying to format the old HDD that i have. When i go to my computer and click format it just says cannot format. So i went to computer management and it shows both C and D drives are the primary partition. How can i get it to let me format the original drive?
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Both C and D drives are primary, how do i change that?
- Thread starter Heiko_R
- Start date
Ironsounds
Champion
- Jul 31, 2011
- 10,402
- 4
- 56,960
Hello... Windows does not delete or format it's self, it needs to done at the DOS level... BOOT any WIN OS install media and choose custom install... and use the "drive tools" APP included, to delete all the Partitions on it. And then use your new WIN OS Computer-manage-disk management to re-partition, format, mark active for use.
Hi
can you show us a picture of the Disk Management screen
(this will show us what hard disks and partitions you have. give us the drive letters you which to format )
[I am assuming the problem disk had Windows not Linux on it]
Each hard disk can have several partitions on it (MBR disk max 4, GPT disk max 128)
Windows Vista and latter always have at least 2 partitions often with a very small hidden partition at the front of the disk
The Windows drive C: partition cant be formatted while Windows is running on C:
regards
Mike Barnes
can you show us a picture of the Disk Management screen
(this will show us what hard disks and partitions you have. give us the drive letters you which to format )
[I am assuming the problem disk had Windows not Linux on it]
Each hard disk can have several partitions on it (MBR disk max 4, GPT disk max 128)
Windows Vista and latter always have at least 2 partitions often with a very small hidden partition at the front of the disk
The Windows drive C: partition cant be formatted while Windows is running on C:
regards
Mike Barnes
Hi
Did you install Win 7 to 1TB drive when Vista was on 160GB drive?
(with Vista still on the 160GB drive)
I hope you have a Win 7 DVD or USB available
[Backup any important data first]
remove 160GB drive
I expect you will not be able to startup windows as the windows boot manager files are probably on the 160GB (149Gib) drive
If this is the case the boot from Win 7 USB or DVD and do a startup repair
Once you can boot up Windows from 1TB disk you can add back the 160GB drive but you need to go into BIOS (or UEFI) and make sure the 1TB drive is the main boot disk not the 160GB drive
Only then will Windows let you format the 160/149GB drive
regards
Mike Barnes
Did you install Win 7 to 1TB drive when Vista was on 160GB drive?
(with Vista still on the 160GB drive)
I hope you have a Win 7 DVD or USB available
[Backup any important data first]
remove 160GB drive
I expect you will not be able to startup windows as the windows boot manager files are probably on the 160GB (149Gib) drive
If this is the case the boot from Win 7 USB or DVD and do a startup repair
Once you can boot up Windows from 1TB disk you can add back the 160GB drive but you need to go into BIOS (or UEFI) and make sure the 1TB drive is the main boot disk not the 160GB drive
Only then will Windows let you format the 160/149GB drive
regards
Mike Barnes
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