Format hard drive

[reddevilggg]

How can i format my slave drive so that it does not have any windows O/S stuff on it. So that its just an empty drive that i can store extra files and documents on on it. I installed it from another PC and it has left over files on it.

Can this be done??

[Allan]

Just boot to an OS CD and begin the installation process. Early on you'll be given the opportunity to format. Choose that option. After the format, remove the cd.

[reddevilggg]

Can i do this from my recovery drive??

[Allan]

I don't understand the question.

[Allan]

Do you mean a recovery CD?

If so, no. If you don't have an OS cd just slave the drive to whatever system you intend to use it as a backup and format it from there.

[reddevilggg]

I have a actual drive on my PC called a 'recovery drive' , i think this is instead of a CD.

But if i go to my F drive (the slave) and right click and select 'format' it says that i have to close everything before i can format but if i close everything then i can not select the drive and format it!!

[reddevilggg]

The dialogue box says 'Windows cannot format this drive. Qiut any disk utilities that are using this drive and make sure that no window is displaying the contents of the drive. Then try formatting again'

[patio]

List all your drives and designations...
IE: Physical drive/partitions...Drive #2/partitions etc. and what's contained on each...

[Allan]

You cannot boot to the drive / partition you want to format. You need to boot to a different drive and then format the one you want to format.

[Cityscape]

You could download and try Kill Disk Hard Drive Erase tool. get it here: http://www.killdisk.com/

[reddevilggg]

List all your drives and designations...
IE: Physical drive/partitions...Drive #2/partitions etc. and what's contained on each...

How do i do this??

I have a C: drive (master) a D:drive (recovery drive) and F: drive (slave, the drive i'm trying to format)

As i mentioned before, the F drive has been installed from another PC and has some Windows data on it (but cannot run windows as alot of the important files have been deleted) but i would like it to be cleared of everything and use it just for storage.

My PC is booted from the C drive then i go to  My computer right click on the F drive and choose format. Then a dialogue box pops up and say the response i posted earlier!

[Allan]

It sounds to me as though you are booting to f: drive.

Yep.

[reddevilggg]

According to the BIOS i'm booting to the C: drive

As i mentioned before, the F drive has been installed from another PC and has some Windows data on it (but cannot run windows as alot of the important files have been deleted)

[reddevilggg]

Thanks Cityscape, I 'killed' the disk using the killdisk app then used Disk Mangement to create an extended partition and was able to give it a letter ( F: ) by making it a logical partition. The drive is now 100% empty and free to store data.

Thank for all your replies, but Cityscape gets the click. 

[patio]

It sounds to me as though you are booting to f: drive.

Yep.