"Drive cannot be formatted" Huh??

ascoredhat · 11-09-2007, 10:40 AM

Hello,

I bought a Maxtor 3200 external 160 gb HD recently and it comes with the NTFS style of partition. The computer that I have that is most in need of a backup (like 80 gb worth... the main reason I got the external drive to begin with.. can't imagine the amount of CD's I'd have to burn...lol) uses Windows 98. And, as you know, Windows 98 won't recognize a NTFS device. I couldn't change the external drive to FAT32 using my laptop at home since it is XP and XP won't allow formatting from NTFS to FAT32 (not sure why, but whatever).
Anyway, I remembered that my office computers use Windows 2000, so I brought my Maxtor external drive with me, hooked it up there and a message came up right away telling me that the external drive wasn't formatted and do I want to format it now? So, of course I said "yes" and chose the FAT32 option and it went ahead and started formatting merrily away, the blue bar slowly making it's way up and after an hour or so it reached the end. After finishing a message came up saying that Drive E (the external drive) cannot be formatted.
Huh? I thought that's what it was doing that whole time.

Did I miss something? Did I forget to do something first?

Please advise. Thank you.

ascoredhat · 11-09-2007, 10:56 AM

Oh, and I should also mention that when I click on this drive in My Computer and hit Properties, it shows the entire drive as "Used" and capacity as 0.

11-09-2007, 10:40 AM	#1 (permalink)
ascoredhat Registered User Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 25 OS: Windows XP	"Drive cannot be formatted" Huh?? Hello, I bought a Maxtor 3200 external 160 gb HD recently and it comes with the NTFS style of partition. The computer that I have that is most in need of a backup (like 80 gb worth... the main reason I got the external drive to begin with.. can't imagine the amount of CD's I'd have to burn...lol) uses Windows 98. And, as you know, Windows 98 won't recognize a NTFS device. I couldn't change the external drive to FAT32 using my laptop at home since it is XP and XP won't allow formatting from NTFS to FAT32 (not sure why, but whatever). Anyway, I remembered that my office computers use Windows 2000, so I brought my Maxtor external drive with me, hooked it up there and a message came up right away telling me that the external drive wasn't formatted and do I want to format it now? So, of course I said "yes" and chose the FAT32 option and it went ahead and started formatting merrily away, the blue bar slowly making it's way up and after an hour or so it reached the end. After finishing a message came up saying that Drive E (the external drive) cannot be formatted. Huh? I thought that's what it was doing that whole time. Did I miss something? Did I forget to do something first? Please advise. Thank you.

11-09-2007, 10:56 AM	#2 (permalink)
ascoredhat Registered User Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 25 OS: Windows XP	Re: "Drive cannot be formatted" Huh?? Oh, and I should also mention that when I click on this drive in My Computer and hit Properties, it shows the entire drive as "Used" and capacity as 0.