Format Hard Drive

J

jhazel

New Member
My laptop has 2 hard drives (200GB each). I recently had to reinstall my OS (Windows 7), and I freshly installed it on the drive that I had previously used for storage (no OS)....because trying to reinstall it over my previous install was causing errors.

Everything works fine now, however, I cannot go back and format the drive which previously had Windows on it. There is nothing useful there, as all my OS files are on a separate hard drive.

I have accessed disk management, and get the error that "Windows cannot format the system partition on this disk".

The HD with my old install is marked as Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition).

The HD containing my current install is marked as Healthy (Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition).

How can I completely format my HD containing my old(non-working) installation of Windows? Manually deleting old system files on it produces errors, even though I have full permissions and access to delete etc.

Thanks in advance
 
take out the working drive, format the one with the old OS on board using dban and then reinstall your OS drive and see if the blanked HD can be formatted for windows.
 
Here something for your tool box.
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

Download it, burn the bootable iso, reboot, selective the drive you want to format and do it.

Should work without any trouble especially since your files are on a separate dive. Worst case scenario, Win 7 doesn't boot. If that does happen, use your Win7 disk to rebuild the BCD. Here's how.

Method 2: Rebuild the BCD store by using the Bootrec.exe tool
If the previous method does not resolve the problem, you can rebuild the BCD store by using the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Put the Windows 7 installation disc in the disc drive, and then start the computer.
2. Press a key when you are prompted.
3. Select a language, a time, a currency, and a keyboard or another input method, and then click Next.
4. Click Repair your computer.
5. Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next.
6. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt.
7. Type Bootrec /RebuildBcd, and then press ENTER.
* If the Bootrec.exe tool runs successfully, it presents you with an installation path of a Windows directory. To add the entry to the BCD store, type Yes. A confirmation message appears that indicates the entry was added successfully.
* If the Bootrec.exe tool cannot locate any missing Windows installations, you must remove the BCD store, and then you must re-create it. To do this, type the following commands in the order in which they are presented. Press ENTER after each command.
Bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup
ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old
Bootrec /rebuildbcd
8. Restart the computer.
 
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