New
#1
Unable to format hdd
Hi all, I recently installed a new, bigger, hard drive into my computer. I successfully installed Windows 7 Ultimate (x64) onto the new drive, partitioned it and copied all of the data I wanted to save from my old drive onto the new. The last thing I want to do is format the old drive. Using Disk Management, I successfully removed all of the partitions from the old drive and it now shows as 1 (almost) 500 gig drive. When I attempt to format it, though, I get the message "Windows cannot format the system partition on this disk." After doing a quick search of the web, I found a site suggesting a way to fix this is, by using the "diskpart" command at the command prompt, to set the partition to inactive. I gave that a shot, rebooted the computer and only received a boot failure message (non system disk inserted or something to that effect). I managed to change that particular partition back to active and am now able to boot up the computer once more, but I'm still back to being unable to format the old drive. In Disk Management, the new drive's properties are as follows: "Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition." The old drive shows as only "System, Active, Primary Partition." What can I do to be able to format that old drive and, if I need to, set the new drive (or Windows installation partition) to "System"? Thanks in advance. Pot8ohead