Force Format?

[mstester]

Hey guys,

Just a little question for you all. Suppose I have a 40gb Hard Drive with two partitions i.e. each 20gb, on one partition I have installed XP and the other Server 2003. I'm trying to find a way to format the second partition from within XP but through compmgmt.msc-->Disk Management thes option for format is greyed out!

Also sometimes I recieve an error saying that there are files which are needed etc. Is there a way to do a force format? Would I have dismount the drive and then format

Any help would be cool.

Thanks,

Phil

[LLXX]

Tried the format command at a cmd prompt? (Ensure you have the correct drive letter!)

[mstester]

Tried the format command at a cmd prompt? (Ensure you have the correct drive letter!)

yeah ive tried that still no joy?

[bonestonne]

if you want to delete server, and extend XP, just get a partitioning software that can manage allpartitions without a problem. swissknife isn't one that can do this, although partition magic can.

[Plamdi]

There's two possible problems I can think of. The first is that you're trying to format the primary partition, and as the primary partition is the partition that boots to WinXP it won't let you do this. The second possible problem is that Windows knows there's an operating system on the secondary partition - though I don't regard this as being highly possible. To rule out the second possibility just edit C:\boot.ini and remove the reference to 2003 server under [operating systems]. Personally, I think what's happened is that 2003 server is on the primary partition. You likely can reformat it from the recovery console... or repartition it using fdisk - however remember to use recovery console to fix the bootsector, and point it to the XP installation (in other words, print out your boot.ini file so you can remake it later).

[Takeshi]

It's not that XP won't format a primary partition or one with an OS. Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) greys out the format options for the first active primary partition on each HD.

Without knowing more details from the poster we're only left guessing what his setup is.

If you force format the partition (which of course you could do offline), you may well make your system unbootable.

[mstester]

Thanks guys,

Ok i now know what the problem was I had the partition with Server 2003 installed set to the active partition!! Used disk part to change it and re-tried the format and it worked