system32

i recently bought a new notebook and have decided to turn the hdd from my old broken notebook into an external drive. how can i reformat the drive to get the stuff i can't delete off?

 

The shouldn't be any problems with deleting data. Are you sure it's not broken ?
If that's not the case try formating it with Partition Magic or sth like that.

 

Formating the old hard drive

you can format the old drive using DOS commands. but you need to be very careful that you do not format your main drive :!: If you do, you won't be able to recover :guru:!

To run DOS commands you will go to the 'Start' and then click 'Run' and type
'cmd' and click ok. This will bring up a DOS window. You can enter DOS commands as follows:

dir d: <= will display the directory file listing for Drive d:

format /? <= will display help/syntax for using format

format d: <= will format drive d

If you do decide to format your old drive make sure you enter the correct drive letter (ie d: ). I would do a 'dir' on the directory first to ensure that you have the right drive before using the format command.

Another option you can do is to use the dir ('dir d: /A:h' this will display hidden files) to find hidden(h), read only(r) or system(s) files. You can then use attrib ('attrib -r d:*.*' will remove the read only attribute on all files on drive d: ) to make hidden file visible or make read only files deleteable. Then you should be able to delete these files normally.


EagleKnight.com
Hispanic Genealogy

 

Correct way

The Does method works but if you are not shore I would not do it.

The best way to do this is to get a USB to IDE/SATA connector. This will allow you to connect the HDD to your usb slot.

Now lets check to see if the drive mounted
Right click My Computer and select Manage

Once "Computer Management" Opens Select "Disk Management"

By Defualt the hard drive that windows likes to use is Drive (C

In Disk Management you will see all the drives that have a letter, and all the drives that were mounted.

If there is any problem with your HDD that you are trying to connect, then it will not mount.

(unallicated)
This means there is no partion on the disk.

The disk needs to be partition with ether FAT16, FAT32, NTSF

FAT16
This is used for small drives max 3 gigs

FAT32 can be formated up to 32 gigs but will not have any security or file compresstion

NTSF
This is what you will format your drive with.
You can make it a share drive and use NTSF permissions, and also do file compression if you get to the point were your disk is full.


To format the drive, Slect the drive in the bottem collum and right click, Select Format