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RE: Cant format drive

WAW8 — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:32:49 GMT

Don't know if this is your specific problem, but it does appear to be a known problem. See the following MS posting:

[b][url] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931654 [/url][/b]

However, Jordus provided you a command-based method of doing this that should bypass this problem.

RE: Cant format drive

Jordus — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:08:47 GMT

try doing it the command line way.

Open an elevated command prompt (right click cmd.exe and choose run as administrator)
type in Diskpart (this loads the disk partitioning program)
type in list disks
figure out which disk is the one you are trying to format based on size, make SURE you choose the right one. Find the number its associated with.
type Select Disk 1 (we will assume 1 for now, it could be a variance of numbers, the first disk number starts at 0)
type clean
type create partition primary
type format fs=ntfs (replace NTFS with FAT32 or exFAT, depending on what FS you want, you can also add the word quick after the file system for NTFS)
once thats finished..
type Active
type Assign
type exit

You should now have a clean, formatted disk with a drive letter assigned to it.

Cant format drive

mikeody — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:38:50 GMT

I want to format a drive.
It contains no system files at all.
I right click the drive in 'Computer', click 'Format', get the warning message but as soon as I click 'Start' I immediately get 'Windows was unable to complete the format'.
Anyone any ideas ? Thanks.