I have been using a 500 GB drive with my 211 and want replace it with a 250 GB drive. And put the 500 GB drive back in my computer. I am using win XP. When I go into disk managment and rescan my drives. The 500Gb drive is displayed for only a few seconds. When I right click on the drive the only option available is delete partition. When I click this option I am told an error has occured. I think that it is now formated in Linxus and windows has a brain fart. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Mike
Help reformat drive to windows XP
- Thread starter tontine
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Windows should be able to delete the partition(s) and manage it. It won't necessarily recognize (or list) the partition type or format though. It will just say "Unknown" or similar. Do you have another computer you can try with ? What about putting it back in the USB enclosure until you get it wiped ?
Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Disk Management/
you should then see Unknown Device, click on, then an option to format.
you should then see Unknown Device, click on, then an option to format.
I spend my working days in a computer lab. We have found that any drive formatted in Linux can NOT, I repeat, NOT be properly managed by a Windows OS. They may appear to repartition or reformat, but if they work at all they usually have only 50% of the data capacity that they should.
I had a student show me which two bytes at the end of the partition table did this, but I digress. The only solution I know of is to get a low level formatter/disk wiper (free version: KillDisk), or, use a hex editor to overwrite all 512 bytes of the partiton table to zeroes (absolute sector 0 also known as track 0 sector 0.
I had a student show me which two bytes at the end of the partition table did this, but I digress. The only solution I know of is to get a low level formatter/disk wiper (free version: KillDisk), or, use a hex editor to overwrite all 512 bytes of the partiton table to zeroes (absolute sector 0 also known as track 0 sector 0.
Just curious what/how you managed this so I can make sure not to do it the same way. I've had ZERO issues reformatting a Linux-formatted drive to it's full (NTFS) capacity.
Point taken.
We have had continuing problems with the situation as I described. For us, deleting partitions in Windows Disk Manager did not solve the problem, nor did a DOS-based FDISK.
The OP's symptoms were completely in line with our experiences. I should not have inferred or stated that *all* Linux processed drives would not work with Windows. I should have been specific what versions of Linux had been on the drives previously, but I had no way of knowing what had been on them, just that they came from a Linux lab.
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Yes, it can. Formatting a drive doesn't affect the boot record, which is where GRUB gets "installed". To get rid of it, you need to use "fixmbr" from the recovery console.
I have tried everyones suggestion. Kill disk says it is writing 0's Then after it gets to the 99% done mark it give me an error message: Error(the handle is invalid) refreshing hard disk 1.Then the disk info disappears.
When I use windows disk managment console I can partion the disk but when I try to format the disk I get the message: The formating did not complete correctly, then the disk info disappears.
I tried setting up the drive as C drive and booted from windows install disk. When I try to format I get the message There is no disk in the drive.
I could not even figure out which Gparted program to download I think I could get in trouble with this program.
Whenever the info disappeared I had to turn off the computer-unplug the drive- turn on the computer the turn off the computer- plug the drive back in . Then the computer sees the disk info.
When I use windows disk managment console I can partion the disk but when I try to format the disk I get the message: The formating did not complete correctly, then the disk info disappears.
I tried setting up the drive as C drive and booted from windows install disk. When I try to format I get the message There is no disk in the drive.
I could not even figure out which Gparted program to download I think I could get in trouble with this program.
Whenever the info disappeared I had to turn off the computer-unplug the drive- turn on the computer the turn off the computer- plug the drive back in . Then the computer sees the disk info.
Go here, GParted -- Download, and download a "live CD" version. Disconnect your main (Windows) hard-drive and only have the hard-drive you want to wipe connected as well as a CD/DVD drive. This way you won't wipe out your good drive.
is it a sata drive? if so that may be why the windows installer could not see the drive
