Formatting partition outside of Windows ?

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Richard Laymon said:
Your almost correct, it is a multiple partitioned drive but Windows isn't on the drive. I has four partitions with this one partition corrupt. Any attempt at formatting within the Windows GUI hangs Windows.
I will however try what you suggest, it sounds logical (no pun intended)

Dude, now I'm confused. Can you please tell usEXACTLY what your trying to do.

Is this drive your trying to format slaved to another hdd? or what?

This is like playing twenty questions.
 
RicoDirenzo said:
DID YOU TRY THIS OR NOT?
Yes I did try this and it doesn't work, Windows just hangs.

Wicked23 said:
Is this drive your trying to format slaved to another hdd? or what?

This is like playing twenty questions.
No this drive is not slaved to another drive. It's a lone drive with four partitions, one of which is corrupt and any attempt to format it within the Windows GUI results in nothing happening.
 
Richard Laymon said:
Windows isn't on the drive. I has four partitions with this one partition corrupt. Any attempt at formatting within the Windows GUI hangs Windows.
It's a lone drive with four partitions, one of which is corrupt and any attempt to format it within the Windows GUI results in nothing happening.ded)


How r u formating in a windows gui on a lone drive that doesn't contain windows and isn't slaved to another hdd?????
 
Without it sitting in front of me....I have no idea. Hard drives are dirt cheap. Buy a second drive and reinstall windows on the new drive, transfer you important data from the old partitions to the new drive and reformat the old drive for data storage. You are making your life way to complicated!!
 
Boot wih a win98 bootdisk (you can get it from www.bootdisk.com or .org, I dont remember) then (after you boot with the diskette) type "format X:" X is the unit or your partition. type Yes when asked and wait..... Will take longer than a NORMAL windows GUI formating but will a sure thing. If the problem persist, you have a hardware problem...
 
It's a lone drive (not the only drive, it just happens to be on it's own IDE slot with it's own IDE cable) connected to the computer along with some other drives connected the same way via there own IDE cables and connectors. It doesn't have Windows on it. The three partitions that work have material on them, the one that doesn't work, doesn't have material on it. I have tried formatting via the way RD suggested, this doesn't work because nothing happens. It remains at 0% formatting and most probably would do till time or electric run out.
I have no need to install Windows because there is nothing wrong with Windows, it is the partition on the drive that doesn't have Windows on it that has a problem. In the old days I would have booted to DOS and formatted that way but as Windows XP doesn't have DOS I'm kinda stumped.
 
Sorry Artik2, I was posting whilst you were and didn't see your post. I have a motherboard that doesn't support floppy drives therefore I can't use a Windows 98 bootdisk :(
 
Now that wasn't so hard. Should have posted that in the first place. Would have saved us lot's of time. Water under the bridge.

anyhow, Win xp has ms-dos prompt under start ,programs, accesories that does have format capabilities.

did you try using the windows disk like i suggested earlier?
 
No, I'm sure the Windows disk would have worked but I was prompted to use the Maxtor drive utility MaxBlast 4. This played with the partition for a few seconds, told me it had sorted it out. I then used Windows Disk Management utility to format the drive. It didn't hang as before and is whisking through it like a breeze as I speak :)
 
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