[PedroThaDon13]

I have a 200 gig Magnetic Data Technologies hard drive that ive had for about four months now and its worked perfect, until now. I was unzippin a .rar file of pictures and then it said that my drive was probrobly full but it still had almost 100 gigs left. Then i went to see if i could delete a video i had and it told me i had to reformat my drive, so then i tried and it tells me i have to exit out of every thing (which i already did) and it still wouldnt let me. Could anyone tell me an easy and safe way to reformat my hard drive?

Thank you

[Mighty Mouse]

"Then i went to see if i could delete a video i had and it told me i had to reformat my drive,"
that's a new one on me ! never seen a msg like that before. it could be that your "allocated" space for your Recycle Bin is full.

"so then i tried and it tells me i have to exit out of every thing (which i already did)"
you can't format your hdd while Win (WinXP ?) is running >>>> specifically, you can't format the C: System partition. You can tho do so by booting from the Win (XP ?) install CD, and choosing "R" for Repair. You can then Format your C: System partition, before the hdd loads the OS. The problem with doing it this way is, if you have other partitions existing (say, E: F: ) with programs installed to them, those programs in E: and F: may no longer work after you reinstall OS to the newly formated C:, as many files relating to installed programs in E: F: are sometimes allocated to C:

"Could anyone tell me an easy and safe way to reformat my hard drive?"
best way is to back up your data to another media, boot from your Win (XP ?) install CD to effect a "clean install" by deleting existing partitions firstly, creating new partitions secondly and then format them. Finish off the install, and then reinstall all programs, applications, data etc. A nice clean HDD

[PedroThaDon13]

Thank you. I didnt mention it was an external hard drive tho. Sorry about that

[bigbear]

Originally Posted by PedroThaDon13

Thank you. I didnt mention it was an external hard drive tho. Sorry about that

Then just format the drive using diskmanagement.
Start>run and type diskmgmt.msc then hit enter.
Right click on the drive and format with ntfs

[TheOutcaste]

If you have System Restore enabled on the drive, or anything similar to Norton's Protected recycle bin, the external might always be seen as "in use" and you might not be able to format the drive.

To check System Restore, right click My Computer, click Properties, then click the System Restore Tab. Make sure the external drive does not show as being monitored. If it does, highlight it and click settings, then turn off System Restore for that drive

For Norton's Protected recycle bin, right click the recycle bin, choose properties, then click the Norton Protection tab. Select the external Drive from the drop down box, and make sure Enable Protection is unchecked.

For other similar software, check it's documentation.

HTH

Jerry