[albear]

Hello,

When I installed windows 7 professional edition my C drive did not have enough free space on it, so I chose to install iton my D drive. Now my D drive is the main hard drive, that's not the problem (at least I don't think so),

So I went about deleting all the old programs, documents, etc on the C drive since I had made a backup and a copy onto my external hard drive, so that I could then reformat my C drive and get rid of everything, but it won't let me, I've tried shrinking it as it suggested, but still nada,

Now after going about and reinstalling some programs back onto my D drive its starting to look a little full and sooner or later I'm going to need the space, so if there's anything you can think of to help it would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks

[seahwk83]

If not a problem with c:, when installing programs, install them to c: drive and if your system ever crashes and you you need to use a backup, you will only need to be worried about d: and everything on c: will still be there and after a successful restore from a backup, all your porgrams will still be working that were installed on c:

[albear]

If not a problem with c:, when installing programs, install them to c: drive and if your system ever crashes and you you need to use a backup, you will only need to be worried about d: and everything on c: will still be there and after a succesful restore from a backup, all your porgrams will still be working that were installed on c:

Right, OK, but my C drive is half full with useless items from my previous version of windows, i.e vista anmongst other things that I cannot delete, and hence I've lost that 30 something gb and I want to format my C drive so that I can get rid of all that

[seahwk83]

Did you do a fresh install of win 7 or did you upgrade?

If you did a clean install, just format c:

[albear]

If I remember correctly it wouldn't allow me to upgrade from vista to windows 7 professional, so I had to do the fresh install, but it still says it was unable to complete format

[seahwk83]

So win 7 is installed now to d:?

How are you trying to format the c: drive?

What exact type of message(s) are you getting when trying to format c:?

[albear]

Yea windows 7 prof is installed to D

I'm right clicking on it then clicking 'format'

'windows was unable to complete the format'

[seahwk83]

Right click on the c: drive and go to properties
-what is the file system listed as (NTFS or FAT32)

Now take notice of that and when you right click on the c: drive to format it, make sure choosing the same file system to format as

See if this helps at all

[albear]

The file system is NTFS and the only option when formatting is NTFS (default)

And still getting the same error message :(

[seahwk83]

Run chkdsk with the drive error tool that is in win7

Here are the steps to use - follow the images and just go step by step
How to use CHKDSK (Check Disk) - Windows 7

Once error checking is all done and hopefully the if issues exists they will be fixed and you will be able to format the drive when that is don

Hope this helps out, post back when give it a try

[albear]

Instead of scheduling a test, it suggested a forced dismount, but that's because the drive is in use, which I don't get because as far as I know there's nothing on it that's running?

[seahwk83]

Try the forced simount

Or try
Go down to the bottom to the bottom of the page and try to run from the command promt

[albear]

Still comes up with the error message

[seahwk83]

try this

start, run, cmd
now type
CHKDSK c: /X /F /R

[albear]

'Access denied as you do not have sufficient privileges.
You have to invoke this utility running in elevated mode'

[seahwk83]

1. Click on Windows 7 Start Button

2. Go to All Programs-> Accessories

3. Now right on Command Prompt and select “Run as Administrator” from context menu

Now you should be able to run

[albear]

OK, its checking now

[seahwk83]

Good to hear

[albear]

Its 42% at the moment stage 4 of 5 and doesn't seem to be showing signs of finishing any time soon

So after this has finished should I be able to 'in theory' format my C drive

The reason I ask is because its rather late here and I need to get some sleep to get up early

[albear]

Reet, its just finished

Tried to format again, but still got the same error message