[XP] Formatting drive D: could not be completed

[pipercub]

Hi,
After I had a problem with my D; drive and could not access it because it said D: needs to be formatted I went ahead and tried to format it. When I got to the end of the format process I got a popup that said formatting drive D: could not be completed. So I closed that popup and another popup appeared saying the disk in drive D: cannot be formatted. Am I formatting it wrong or what?
I have XP home addition. The hard drive is a Western Digital.
Thanks

[Train]

Is it installed in the computer case or is it a external drive.

[pipercub]

Thanks for responding!

It is an internal drive. I have one 20g which is the C:, a 40g which is the D: and E: drive. XP is on the C: drive. I was doing something in Wordperfect and when I tried to bring up a file I couldn't and when I clicked on the D: drive in my computer it said I needed to format the D:. I posted to the mentors on V.D. and after many suggestions nothing worked so I decided to go ahead and format it. That's when the messages came up saying it could not be formatted.

[pipercub]

Do I need to use The XP disk to format the drive?

[photolady]

No, you don't need the xp cd to format. How are you trying to format it? If through right click and chosing format, you might want to use Disk Management instead.

Right click on "My Computer" and chose Manage, then when that window opens, chose Disk Management in the list on the left hand side. When Disk Management opens, right click your drive and chose format from that drop down list.

[SuperSparks]

If that doesn't help, boot up with the WinXP CD in the drive, and go to the Recovery Console. At the command prompt, type "Fixmbr", then "chkdsk D: /r" all without the quotes.

[Train]

Since D is the second hdd.
fixboot d:

Should fix it.

chkdsk D: /R
Will run checkdisk on the D: partition and as E: is on the same drive, I'd run chkdsk E: /R also

[SuperSparks]

Oops, thanks for the correction Train, I've edited my post. I meant to type chkdsk D: /r as well, my fingers obviously had other ideas

[Train]

We both have goofed like that.

[pipercub]

What a responce from the big guns (not in size).

Since photolady was first, I tried that and got the responce "The format did not complete successfully". So I went to SuperSparks but I couldn't find Recovery Console. I managed to find out that is wasn't installed. After doing that I followed Train's corrected instructions and ran it. Then I formatted and got the statement "The format did not complete successfully" again but I noticed I had 10gb of the D; drive formatted. I formatted again and got all of it formatted. Then I loaded a program and thanks to all of you, IT WORKS!!! So I learned a lot!

Thanks again.

[SuperSparks]

You're very welcome, I'm glad you god it sorted out in the end