Don't have permission to format a drive

I have 3 500GB WD drives; one with my old OS, one with my current OS, and one for extra junk. Working off my current OS, I want to format the old OS dirve. When I go to do that, it says that "Windows was unable to complete the format". So I deleted everything using a batch with

Code:

del /f/s/q foldername > nul
rmdir /s/q foldername

Except that I didn't delete everything, some stuff was Access Denied. So I tried running the batch with elevated permissions. It deletes a couple more. When I try to manually delete the files, it tells me that I need permission from Administrator, to TrustedInstaller, to SYSTEM. I really want to format and use this drive, and I'm not above data destruction software.

Can you post a screen shot of Disk management?

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Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image

Here it is

http://s24.postimg.org/u2i1v747p/disk_Managment.jpg
Drive A: is the drive I want to format, drive I: is the drive I use, and drive F: is for extra stuff

A: is for floppy drives.

If you have a OS on I: that should C:

A: is ACTIVE & SYSTEM Partition, you can not delete.

Drive A can't be formatted or deleted because it is booting Win7 on I now. You must have installed Win7 from another OS because it normally boots as C if it is correctly installed from its booted installer. If you dont' mind it this way you can keep it, otherwise unplug all other HD's to reinstall to DISK0 correctly following Clean Install Windows 7.

If you want to keep Win7 on I then to move its boot files there unplug all other HD's, boot the WIn7 installer or System Repair Disk to run Startup Repair - Run up to 3 Separate Times until Win7 boots on its own and holds the System Active Boot flags.

You can then plug back in the other HD's, mark A Inactive: Partition - Mark as Inactive - Windows 7 Forums .

To get A the cleanest I would wipe it using Diskpart Clean Command . Otherwise after marking it Inactive it should delete in Disk Mgmt. You can then repartition it for data.

Another problem is that DISK2 has converted to Dynamic which is only meant to span a partition across Multiple HD's. If you're not doing that then you'll need to use the non-destructive option 1 in Convert a Dynamic Disk to a Basic Disk.

gregrocker, thanks for your help, I will start on that now. How do I tell apart the three drives? Unplug untill the right one is identified?

If you rightclick on the Disk Mgmt drive map panel which says DISK0/1/2 on it, then choose Properties, it will tell you the make/model of HD plugged into that port. You can then figure out which is which by their placement in the tower drive bays.