Windows will not allow me to re-format a drive E:


  1. Posts : 17
    Windows 7 Pro
       #1

    Windows will not allow me to re-format a drive E:


    Windows 7 Pro

    I have 3 physical drives in my pc
    C: Has Windows applications on.
    D: Has all my data on.
    E: Has assorted files on.

    I want to re-format E: but when I select Computer Management and the select Disk Management and right click E: Format option is greyed out.
    Any idea how I can format e:
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 12,120
    Win 7 Pro x64 / Win 10 Pro
       #2
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 233
    W7 Home Premium 32bit
       #3

    You could also try diskpart.

    Type the following in an elevated command prompt (run as admin):

    diskpart
    list disk (note your E drive #, and use it in next entry. Go by size to get it right)
    select disk #
    clean

    When it completes, type exit and see if you can now initialize and format in disk mgr.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 17
    Windows 7 Pro
    Thread Starter
       #4

    Bongo said:
    Thanks for the suggestion but it did not allow me to format drive E:

    I removed the drive E: from my Windows 7 pc and put it in my new pc which is running Windows 8 and I was allowed to format my drive
    Last edited by Walter; 08 Mar 2013 at 16:58. Reason: ad info
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 17
    Windows 7 Pro
    Thread Starter
       #5

    Bongo said:
    pscowboy said:
    You could also try diskpart.

    Type the following in an elevated command prompt (run as admin):

    diskpart
    list disk (note your E drive #, and use it in next entry. Go by size to get it right)
    select disk #
    clean

    When it completes, type exit and see if you can now initialize and format in disk mgr.
    Thanks for the suggestion but it did not allow me to format drive E: but
    I removed the drive E: from my Windows 7 pc and put it in my new pc which is running Windows 8 and I was allowed to format my drive
    Last edited by Walter; 08 Mar 2013 at 16:59. Reason: add info
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 13,576
    Windows 10 Pro x64
       #6

    If you would have posted a shot of disk management we could have told you why you couldn`t format it, but glad you got it sorted. :)
      My Computer

  7.    #7

    Since it apparently isn't clear to you, we must see the labels on each partition to be able to tell you why Disk Mgmt won't allow formatting. It is most often because it holds the System Boot files, for which the fix is to move them to the correct partition. We handle these here every day, thousands of times since Win7 was released.
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 17
    Windows 7 Pro
    Thread Starter
       #8

    gregrocker said:
    Since it apparently isn't clear to you, we must see the labels on each partition to be able to tell you why Disk Mgmt won't allow formatting. It is most often because it holds the System Boot files, for which the fix is to move them to the correct partition. We handle these here every day, thousands of times since Win7 was released.
    The drive that I wanted re-format was drive E: which just holds data files (Word doc and Excel xls) not Windows so there were no Windows system files at all.

    Any way as I said I put the drive into my new Windows 8 pc and I was able to re-format it inDisk Mgmt.
      My Computer


 

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