Formatting My Book Essential to NTFS

[SWard]

I'm trying to format my new 1Tb My Book Essentials hard drive from FAT32 to NTFS and am having problems.

Background: I've got a Dell XPS 600 Pentium (R) D CPU 3.00 GHz, 2.99GHz, 2.00 Gb RAM using XP Media Center Edition Version 2002 SP2 and I've attached my new hard drive via USB. This computer is NOT hooked up to the internet or any other computers (it's for editing only) and I haven't had to update any drivers or anything to get anything else to work on it. I've also uninstalled McAfee and have no other virus software running (I figured I didn't need it since I have control over anything connecting to the pc).

I found the drive (M:) in My Computer and right-clicked on it and selected Format. It gave me the Format window and I selected OK to format it. It gave me the window that everything will be wiped out - that's fine since I copied all the files off of it already. It then gives me the message: "Windows cannot format this drive. Quit any disk utilities or other programs that are using this drive, and make sure that no window is displaying the contents of the drive. Then try formatting again." I click on OK because that's the only button available.

I have no other programs running and I looked in Task Manager > Processes and there's 54 processes running, but I don't know most of them so I'm leery of ending any process.

I originally had it plugged into a USB hub and thought that maybe that was causing it to be "open" so I switched it to a USB port on the pc with the same outcome. I've also rebooted many times.

Hopefully that gives enough info for someone to help, but I'm sure I forgot something. What am I doing wrong? How come I can't format my new drive?

Thanks,
Sue

[Bob]

Windows has a convert tool to change to NTFS. Have you tried that rather than format? see: technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb456984(TechNet.10).aspx

[Chuck Engels]

You can also try this:
Open the Control Panel, click on Administrative Tools, Click on Computer Management, Click on Disk Management, and then right click on the new drive and select Format.

[SWard]

Thanks for the replies. I'll try some of the suggestions from Bob's link. Of course, I'm at work now so I'll have to wait until later.

Chuck: I did try doing it that way on Sunday and got the same results. I went into Disk Management last night and couldn't find the Format option so I thought I dreamed it from Sunday. When I right clicked on the drive last night, all that showed was "What's this?". That's when I decided to get help from all of you guys!

[jackfalbey]

My first thought would be a stray window open that's accessing the drive. If that's not it, you can download Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Tools from their website onto an internet-connected PC, move it to a thumb drive and use that to format the My Book.

[SWard]

I should have known better than to post an answer when at work and trying to remember what I saw on the pc the night before. When I right-clicked on the drive in Disk Manager, I did see other things and went into Properties. It was within that that I saw the "What's this" when I right-clicked on some things.

Anyway, thanks to the link from Bob, I tried going into Setup and couldn't figure out the correct drive. I know some things about pcs, but obviously not enough. The link also gave the suggestion of using the command prompt and typing in:

convert {drive letter}: /fs:ntfs

It did prompt me with this message: Convert cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Convert may run if this volume is dismounted first. ALL OPENED HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID. Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (Y/N).

I answered yes and it worked!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have no idea what was running, but the drive seems to be working just fine so I'm happy.

Thanks for the responses and help. Now I'll be able to finish a project that a coworker asked me to do!

Sue

[VernonRobinson]

Sue,
I meant to post this earlier this morning, but I was in a hurry and my head was in a fog at 4:30. I think the drive may have some junk ware on it that is being accessed by the autoplay when you start it up.

I would suggest right clicking on the drive and set the autoplay option off. Then disconnect and reconnect the drive. See if you can format it then.

-Vernon