Reformatting

[chappello]

I am trying to format the C: drive on a Dell Inspiron 1501. I go through all the steps but when I am in the Managment screen, it greys out the format so I cannot click on it to reformat. I have tried to delete the old files and I cannot get them all off so I do really need to format the C: drive on this computer. Can anyone help, it is urgent.
Thanks
Olive

 

[Jonmor68]

You can't format the drive you are using from Windows, because it's in use by Windows.
Formatting the drive will cause your system to be unusable and loose everything on that drive.
What are the files that you are trying to delete? you can't delete systems files.
It would be more usefull to explain any problem you are having relating to the files you are trying to delete, rather then trying to kill Windows.

 

[chappello]

I need to delete Windows.old that the computer saved and it gets so far and then will not let me delete everything. It ended up loading windows twice so I have two lots of the old files to delete.

Can I make a new partition and then maybe I would be allowed to format the C drive

 

[Jonmor68]

If you want to remove that Windows.old folder from Drive C: of your Windows Vista installation.
Go to Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Disk Cleanup.
In "Which files to clean up" dialog - Click on "Files from all users on this computer".
Select the Drive where your Windows.old is.
In Disk Cleanup dialog, select Previous Windows installation(s) in the "Files to delete" list. Click on OK.

 

[chappello]

Best answer selected by chappello.