Printable View
I'm trying to reformat my hard drive, and I get the a message that says that the volume is in use by another process. It gives me the option to force a dismount, and after I say yes to that, it says that it cannot lock the drive and the volume is still in use.
I've seen that other people have had similar problem, but solutions that would work for them don't seem to work for me.
I don't have an a: drive which limits what I can do.
If you're trying to format it while you're still in Windows you won't be able to. It needs to be done before Windows loads. You could use your Windows XP install CD to format it or you could create a bootable CD and use one of a number of formatting/disk tools like the one here...
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
To use the boot CD you will need to go into your BIOS and change the boot order of the available drives... put the CD drive first.
Hi hebru, welcome to Virtual Dr :)
Anothetr way to format the Windows parttition is to boot up with the XP CD in the drive, then at the command prompt, type "format c: /fs:ntfs" or "format c: /fs:fat32" without the quotes, depending on which filesystem you want (NTFS is best). It isn't necessary to format first though, Setup will take care of that.
i restarted my comp, and its says to press 'esc' to get to the boot menu. I do and i gives me a list of things to boot from, so I select 'CD-Rom' and it still loads Windows normally.
You need to do two things once you've set the CD drive to be the first in line in the boot sequence within setup/BIOS... exit and save the settings (usually F10) but follow the instructions you're given and select yes/y when prompted (that means type "yes" or "y" and hit enter to make the boot sequence changes stick)... and have the boot CD in the CD drive when you reboot.
i saved it and it still loads windows normally, it says that it is booiting from cd though...
Which boot CD are you using? Some display a couple of options when you boot and have a timer, usually a few seconds, to make a choice of whether to boot from the CD or continue booting into Windows... if you're monitor screen doesn't warm up in time and actually show the choices then maybe you're just missing the opportunity to select the boot CD. If you think this might be the problem then try tapping the "down" arrow key on the keyboard while it's booting... that will freeze the choices until you can see the screen and hit "enter" on the one you've selected.
If you have more than one optical drive, make sure you have the CD in the one that you have specified in the BIOS to be the boot drive.
Do you have a floppy drive?
I'm using my XP cd to boot.
I don't have a floppy drive.
It doesn't specifiy which CD drive to boot from, just CD-Rom
i figured it out, my xp cd was bad
problem is solved
I'm glad you got it sorted out. Thanks for posting back and letting us know :)