Can I format my D drive without formatting my C drive?

[fustercluck]

I only have one hard drive in my computer, but it's separated into two letters, the C and D drive (each has about 200 GB of space). If I format the D drive, will it format the entire HDD including the C drive or will it just format the portion I selected (only the D drive)? Thanks.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It only formats the partition that you specify. (That is if you are using the "format" option in your OS).

If you are using a manufacturer's diagnostic boot disk, then "write zeros" will erase the entire physical drive.

 

[fustercluck]

Alrighty, good to know. Thanks.

I was planing to go to My computer->Manage->Disk management to do it, I guess that'd be the standard way.

 

[fustercluck]

It won't let me format my D drive for some reason, always says "volume open or in use" but it's not in use as far as I know. Went into safe mode and got the same message. Any ideas?

 

[taltamir]

the whole point of using multiple partitions on one physical drive is to be able to format it (or install another OS on it).

As for it giving you a drive in use warning. Go into it and start deleting stuff, delete everything, see what is left (undeletable because it is in use). And try to uninstall / disable whatever program it is. it is impossible to guess what program might be running from your D drive.

or you can use gparted to format it.

 

[fustercluck]

Is a boot cd the only way to run gparted?

I don't like sourceforge... always use file extensions i've never heard of and give no instruction for installation =/

There seems to be more than a few files on the D drive that won't let me delete them, all files I've never heard of and that aren't currently in use as much as I can tell. "Alphabet.xml" is one of them.

Need a way to forcefully format the drive without it giving me those dumb "in use" errors.

 

[taltamir]

... it is a linux live CD that autoloads a partitioning program... The only way to load it is a boot CD or a boot USB, that is by DESIGN.
It will NOT do you ANY good to run it from WITHIN windows. That is why i suggested it in the first place.

Sourceforge is pure win, it is also a place to host files, check the actual group's homepage or documentation for info...
With gparted you download the ISO, burn it to a CD, and boot from the CD.

You could also try www.eset.com and do a free virus scan. maybe some malicious program is running from your drive D.

 

[fustercluck]

Well first I downloaded "gparted-0.3.9.tar.bz2" and that was obviously the wrong thing because it was really small and full of a bunch of file extensions I didn't recognize. Then I downloaded gparted-live-0.3.7-7.zip and I have no idea what that is either =/ - Anyways...will try the ISO now.

From the screenshots it kinda looks like an app that runs in windows, but I guess that's just after it loads from the boot CD.

Anyhow, will gparted be any different when asked to delete partitions? Or will it tell me the drive or some of it's files are in use and it can't do anything? If that's the case then I'd just be in the same position.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[fustercluck]

quick bump before I go to sleep

I gotta get this thing going tomorrow, been dillydallying too much.

 

[taltamir]

the first thing you downloaded is a tar.bz2, which is the golden standard for SOURCE CODE. you would need to compile it...
Then you downloaded the live .zip... which CLEARLY states it is for making a live USB.
Now you are trying the ISO which is burned to a CD or DVD for a bootable image. - which is what you need

It clearly says what each of them is in multiple locations, including the download page (there is a "file description" icon in source forge next to downloads, most projects don't use them, but gparted clearly describes each one)

 

[fustercluck]

Well I don't know what page you're looking at but it's pretty confusing. At least I got the right one now anyways.

I'm still wondering how gparted will be different from trying to format in Windows, obviously it won't format it in windows because it keeps telling me it's in use. Will Gparted just ignore those annoying little messages?

 

[taltamir]

gparted is gonna load linux into ram, and it will look and see there are drives, and it could format them. it is IMPOSSIBLE for the drives to be in use because windows wouldn't even be running.

 

[fustercluck]

Okie dokey, thanks for your patience. Once gparted is loaded I'll have the option to tell it which partition I want formatted then?

 

[fustercluck]

Finally got into Gparted but it was a little confusing as expected. I wasn't sure which drive was my D drive so I exited Gparted (it then crashed and left a bunch of jumble on my screen), but now I know by looking at the size of the drives which is which, it doesn't say which is C or D exactly in Gparted.

So I want to highlight the partition I want and then Format to->NTFS? I'm pretty sure my computer isn't going to boot up after this

 

[taltamir]

which is C or which is D is an artibrary decision of windows and can be FREELY changed from within windows (you just right click my computer, select manage, and change the drive letters to whatever you want).

There is no way for another OS to know which is which because they are not marked with a drive letter anywhere on the actual drive, it is just a decision being made EVERY TIME you load the OS (it trys to get the same names as before, but if the drives changed it will give them new names)

You can tell by the size which is which.

Also... are you sure you should be doing this? I mean, no offense, but you don't seem to actually know what you are doing... BUT, if you don't mind taking a little risks for the sake of learning, I will be glad to share any knowledge I have with you.
I think you should start by backing up your data in case you are messing something up and need to reinstall windows.

Anyways,which partition is FIRST, if you somehow installed into the second partition in the drive and it is not a boot partition, then maybe windows needs the data on drive D to boot (that would be a pretty botched install, but I can imagine windows doing that...)

Also, did you try running the online antivirus scan from www.eset.com
It could end up removing a virus or more then one, and afterwards you would suddenly be able to format drive D from within windows. Which is the best solution.
Also, add remove programs ANYTHING that is on drive D... and try to just delete all the files on drive D to get a feel of what remains on it.