hard drive problem

[Ibanex0110]

so i'm trying to format a friend of mine's old hard drive, so we can use it in my band's computer. my plan was to just save all the useful stuff on cd, and format it and install windows xp. when i go to format it, it says "Windows cannot format this drive. Quit any disk utilities or other programs that are using this drive, and make sure no window is displaying the contents of this drive. Then try formatting again." I tried putting the XP disk in, and it says it can't install, because the version on my computer is newer (the version on my hard drive)

[Ephemeral]

Did you restart and try again?

[Ibanex0110]

many times

[Ephemeral]

hmmm. I don't really know anything about reformating. I have never had to do it before.

:/

Sorry. :(

[john123]

u have to do it from a boot disk

[TheBlueBaron]

You can format using your Windows XP disc and the Recovery Console.

1. In your BIOS can the boot order of your devices so that "CD-ROM" is your first boot device. Place the XP disc into the drive and boot up the machine.

2. You will eventually be shown a blue screen and the option to "repair a Windows XP installation using the recovery console", press R.

3. A black screen will appear asking you which Windows installation you would like to log onto, press 1 and then enter.

4. Then type "FORMAT C: /Q /FS:NTFS" (without the quotes) which will quick format the drive with the NTFS file format.

That is one way to format your drive if you can't do it on XP. If you have any questions just ask.