Can't Format!?

Kornowski

Kornowski

VIP Member
I tried right clicking on the drive in 'My Computer' and clicking 'Format' and it gets to the end and says that Windows was unable to format the drive.

I've tried formatting it with the Windows CD and it says;

"Windows Set Up could not reinitialize the development engine. To install Windows, Restart the instillation."

What can I do, I can't use the drive unless I format it...
Thanks for any help!
 
Um, which drive? Not your C: drive, right? You cannot format your C: drive from within the Windows GUI. Any other drive, sure, with Disk Management or right-clicking.

If you're talking about formatting your C: drive via the OS disk, I'm going to guess there's some sort of problem with SATA.

Tom
 
OvenMaster said:
Um, which drive? Not your C: drive, right? You cannot format your C: drive from within the Windows GUI. Any other drive, sure, with Disk Management or right-clicking.

If you're talking about formatting your C: drive via the OS disk, I'm going to guess there's some sort of problem with SATA.

Tom
Click to expand...

Hey Tom,

Thanks for the reply.

Nope, it isn't the C: Drive. It's another SATA HDD that I added, I had Windows on it and now I want to format it, but can't. I've tried doing it through 'My Computer', 'Computer Management' and with the 'Vista DVD'. But none of them worked.

Is there a program that can like, force a wipe. All I want is to put Windows on it again, Any suggestions? Change the SATA port?
 
Im guessing theres still some boot files on there, this happened to me.

Is that drive you want to format being classed as the system drive? Check for hidden files on the drive that are still lurking around an then use something like FDISK to format it outside of windows.

IIRC You can't copy the boot files over so it would mean a reformat, but thats one way of getting your nuisance drive formatted

Go check, whats the drive being listed as under drive manager, & What hidden files are left on there;)
 
Bootup05 said:
Im guessing theres still some boot files on there, this happened to me.

Is that drive you want to format being classed as the system drive? Check for hidden files on the drive that are still lurking around an then use something like FDISK to format it outside of windows.

IIRC You can't copy the boot files over so it would mean a reformat, but thats one way of getting your nuisance drive formatted

Go check, whats the drive being listed as under drive manager, & What hidden files are left on there;)
Click to expand...

Yeah, It has a previous copy of Windows on there, Well, I mean, at least I think it does. I can't view what's on it, I need to format it before I can look at what's on it...

I have two HDD's in my computer at the moment, A WD120GB with Vista on, and this Seagate 500GB that I need to format (I want Vista on that one)

What do you suggest?
I was recomended MaxBlast 5, So, I need to format it, then Partition it?

Thanks!
 
It might be possible to clone that drive then use a program to make the partition bigger... Anyway thats out of my league

Did somebody say FDISK??

Super Fdisk is the way to go!!
 
What to do here?

IMG_7597.jpg
 
Looks like you want Option 3, if I go by what you said you wanted.
You also could use Maxblast 5 to zero out the drive and then reformat it for use.
Tom
 
OvenMaster said:
Looks like you want Option 3, if I go by what you said you wanted.
You also could use Maxblast 5 to zero out the drive and then reformat it for use.
Tom
Click to expand...

Yeah, somebody suggested MaxBlast5, is it good?

EDIT: I just used it and created a partition on it, I can now see the drive in my computer, so I'm going to try and put Windows on it now! Thanks for the help! :)
 
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I used to format my HDD's with a Windows 98 Boot Disk that took me to DOS and I would format the drive from there. Not sure if you can do this with Vista though, being that I did it with XP.
 
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