how to reformat a former boot drive

[edccmu22]

I have two hard drives and I'm trying to reformat one of them. It used to boot to windows so if I try to reformat it, I get an error saying I can't reformat a boot drive. I've tried formatting using "computer management" in administrative tools and using the FORMAT command on the command line. The latter says "system partition is not allowed to be formatted". There is nothing I want to save on this drive and I just want to wipe it clean.

Does anyone know how to get around this?

Thanks in advance.

 

[clovely81]

Try just manually deleting everything on it and then format it. Otherwise use a low level formatting tool like powermax to wipe it clean. If you use powermax make sure you select the right hard drive If neither of those work let me know.

 

[Praetor]

1. Uh you're not trying to format a currently live-booted-drive are you?
2. You can always frag the partition

 

[Monk_and_Two_Peas]

If your trying to format a live-booted drive, just do it in dos, (format c Worked for me.

 

[Praetor]

And how exactly did you manage to do that? DOS and LiveBootXP are two mutually exclusive states (i.e., you either have WindowsXP firing up or you have DOS fired up).