Windows xp wont let me format hard drive

Cancel Submit. Try booting to Safe Mode Press F8 repeatedly while booting. There may be some indexing programs, virus protection programs, or the like running around this drive making it appear "in use". Safe mode should prevent this. HTH, JW. How satisfied are you with this reply? Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

LemP Volunteer Moderator. On the Command Prompt black window, type diskpart and press "Enter". Then, type the following command lines in order. This Windows built-in tool allows full management of the disk-based hardware recognized by Windows. Users can view and manage the disk drives installed in their computers and the partitions associated with those drives.

Option 2. Right-click on the Start at the bottom left of the desk; choose Disk Management. Option 3. Any of the solutions above can do you a great favor. If you have any questions on this subject, let us know. If you have other related questions about the "Format" option not available in disk management, you can read these frequently asked questions below.

Set the volume label, file system, and click "OK" to start formatting the drive. As the causes are different, the solutions may also be different. The reason why Windows won't let you shrink the volume is as the message shown in Disk Management suggested because there are immovable system files at the very end of the volume.

Type: select disk 1 and hit Enter ; 1 is the drive number of your USB. Type: assign letter F: You can replace F with other letter based on your needs. Compared with Windows built-in formatting tools, it is more powerful and has the following advantages:. Step 1. You will see all disks on your computer in the main interface. You can see the unable to format external hard drive raw marked as Unformatted here.

Right-click it and select Format Partition. Friday January 13, Crypto Forex Money Property Stocks. Chinese Korean Russian. What to buy. About Dumb Little Man. Facebook Twitter instagram Pinterest. Recent Stories. Author: John V John is an avid researcher and is deeply passionate about health and finance. Web More Posts Oanda is a United States-based Forex broker that was established. Author: Wilbert S Wilbert is an avid researcher and is deeply passionate about health and fitness.

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