I have the following: C: Windows 98 Not used anymore D: Win 2k Not used anymore E: Win XP Used I want to format or delete all info on C & D however when I try to format I get the following: Format may run if this volume is dismounted first When I go to compmgmt.msc I get the following info: C: = Primary Partition healthy (System) D: = Extended Partition Logical Drives healthy (Page File) D: = Extended Partition Logical Drives healthy (Boot) What can I do to get round this? Thanks Ian Venta Sanlucar Sales Sotogrande

You must have administrator priviledges. You don't have to delete a partition to format it, but I recommend you do that - partitioning automatically checks the partition for bad sectors if it isn't done the "quick" way and wipes any false marking of a sector as being bad - e.g. you can have falsely marked sectors if the data contents were copied from a partition that has a real bad sectors on it. Go to Disk Management, RIGHT click on the partitions you want to delete, and delete them one at a time. If you want to keep the same partition size, partition the empty partition FAT32 or NTFS, then Right click again on it and format it. (If it's larger than 32gb you only have the NTFS choice in XP; if it is larger than that and you want it to be FAT32 you have to use a third party program to do that, such as a hard drive manufacturer's drive preparation program, available free of charge on the web site but it may only work if at least one hard drive is the same brand as that or those on the web site). If you want to delete the two partitions and make them one, delete both existing partitions, then partition and format that single unallocatred space. If you want to delete both partitions and make a single partition on the whole drive, or if you want to change the size of the partition XP is on after having deleted one partition, that can't be done in XP without losing all the data on the entire existing XP partition - you must delete the partition XP is presently on too. You must use a third party program, such as Partition Magic, to do that, if you don't want to lose all the data on the drive. If the partition Windows XP is on is using the logical drive letter E or a letter other than C, that cannot be changed in XP - it won't let you change the drive letter of the partition Windows is installed on - you can change any other logical drive letter assigned to a hard drive partition or a CD or DVD drive but that one. If you want that to be C, you either have to run Setup from scratch and have no other Windows installtion visible to Setup on the computer when you run Setup, or if you don't want to lose your data on that partition and don't want to change it's size, you can use a Repair Setup procedure - both methods require booting from the XP CD. The existing XP installation will probably not boot into Windows if you end up with fewer or more partitions on the drive. That is easily fixed by booting with the XP CD and using certain commands in the Recovery Console.

You can't format C: because of the boot code that is needed. But you can delete all the folders on the drive, just leave the stuff in the c: root.

It's seems I didn't mention what I wanted to do, but you have both answered my question. I wanted to delete C & D and continue to use XP - I've formated D by un-setting the page file, but with C I can't. My 1st qustion should have read: E: = Extended Partition Logical Drives healthy (Boot) **NOTE NOT D:** Venta Sanlucar