Format External Drive in Vista

I'm trying to reformat a 120Gig Maxtor USB drive to use as a backup drive. Trying to reformat by right-clicking on the drive and choosing the appropriate selection won't work because Vista tells me some process is using the drive.

I also can't simply delete the files on the drive. It is filled with old backups that I created with NTBackup. On this computer, I don't have the "permission" to delete them, even though I've been using it as backup drive in XP for several years.

My experience with this drive has been that unless it's reformatted, it will screw up backups created by any program other than NTBackup (which of course is not present in Vista).

 

That's bizarre that some process is using the drive. But what I'd do is use the GParted LiveCD to format it.

Link: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115843&package_id=173828

 

If you have a window open showing any of the contents of that drive, then explorer will be using it and you cannot format it. Plug in the drive, then close all explorer windows. Then open 1 window to "Computer", and right click on the drive to format it.

If that doesn't work, close all explorer windows and open "Computer Management", then go to Disk Management and you can format from there.

 

This quoted method is the most foolproof.

Try restarting without the drive connected and then connect it later to see if Windows still thinks it is in use.

 

Thanks for the advice, guys. I managed to get it formatted through Disk Manager.