The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    How to format secondary drive ?

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by Tyo, Apr 10, 2012.

  1. Tyo

    Tyo Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    89
    Messages:
    1,183
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    56
    I have secondary drive that I use only as storage, it's currently fat32 and I want to format it to ntfs.
    I right click drive to sellect format but it does not let me, I also go to computer management and click on Disk Management, I try to format and delete volume there but I get following message.

    when I try to format - "windows cannot the system partition on this disk"
    when I try to delete - "windows cannot delete the active system partition on this disk"
     
    Tyo, Apr 10, 2012
    #1
  2. tijo

    tijo Sacred Blame

    Reputations:
    7,588
    Messages:
    10,023
    Likes Received:
    1,077
    Trophy Points:
    581
    You could try with gparted, it usually does what windows doesn't want to. Make sure your boot loader isn't on the secondary drive though.
     
    tijo, Apr 10, 2012
    #2
  3. Shemmy

    Shemmy Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    11
    Messages:
    318
    Likes Received:
    7
    Trophy Points:
    31
    Are you familiar with the diskpart tool in Windows?
     
    Shemmy, Apr 10, 2012
    #3
  4. KLF

    KLF NBR Super Modernator Super Moderator

    Reputations:
    2,844
    Messages:
    2,736
    Likes Received:
    896
    Trophy Points:
    131
    convert x: /FS:NTFS
     
    KLF, Apr 11, 2012
    #4
  5. Tyo

    Tyo Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    89
    Messages:
    1,183
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    56
    Here's a screenshot of my Disk management

    [​IMG]
     
    Tyo, Apr 11, 2012
    #5
  6. JOSEA

    JOSEA NONE

    Reputations:
    4,013
    Messages:
    3,521
    Likes Received:
    170
    Trophy Points:
    131
    Tyo have you already backed up any data you need on drive E,Disk 1 ? If the answer is YES, open windows help and type Convert a hard disk or partition to NTFS format This will give detailed explanation (AS KLF has stated above)
    Basically from an elevated (administrator) command prompt : convert E: /fs:ntfs
     
    JOSEA, Apr 11, 2012
    #6
  7. Tyo

    Tyo Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    89
    Messages:
    1,183
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    56
    I already backed up both drives, I wanna do format of main drive in a week or two.
     
    Tyo, Apr 11, 2012
    #7
  8. JOSEA

    JOSEA NONE

    Reputations:
    4,013
    Messages:
    3,521
    Likes Received:
    170
    Trophy Points:
    131
    Tyo were you able to use the convert command? (you do not have to format or delete as far as I know)
     
    JOSEA, Apr 11, 2012
    #8
  9. Tyo

    Tyo Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    89
    Messages:
    1,183
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    56
    I think I want to format, the drive hasn't seen a format in 2 years and I just want to clean it completely.
     
    Tyo, Apr 12, 2012
    #9
  10. JOSEA

    JOSEA NONE

    Reputations:
    4,013
    Messages:
    3,521
    Likes Received:
    170
    Trophy Points:
    131
    I would play it safe. First physically remove the 2nd hard drive and make sure you can boot from disk 0 only. (as Tijo implied) Then go the the HDD's manufacturer site and download a formatting tool that runs outside of windows such as SeaTools for DOS | Seagate
    How to Wipe a Seagate Hard Drive | eHow.com
    once it is whiped, you can format through windows disk management
     
    JOSEA, Apr 12, 2012
    #10
  11. Tyo

    Tyo Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    89
    Messages:
    1,183
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    56
    Thanks, will try it out on the weekend.
     
    Tyo, Apr 12, 2012
    #11
  12. Pitabred

    Pitabred Linux geek con rat flail!

    Reputations:
    3,300
    Messages:
    7,115
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    206
    I'm betting your system has some files of some kind open on the E:

    Are any programs installed there? Anything running? If you run a program outside of Windows from a boot disc, like gparted, Windows may complain a lot when you boot it back up and it can't read files it's expecting to be able to but can't find.
     
    Pitabred, Apr 12, 2012
    #12