Windows 7 Formatting drive

[Richard Carew]

Here is my problem. Got a Dell M5150 laptop, and all seemed well. Until I had to install a large auto cad program, and it told me I didn't have enough space. Seems whoever installed it thought a little 60 GB OS drive would be best. So I looked into it, and figured I'd expand C: to remedy this. It wouldn't let me have that option, and wouldn't install elsewhere. Looked into where the extra space is at, and it was sitting there unallocated. All 200+ GB of it.

So I follow the instructions found here, but it would not let me re-allocate the space, kept telling me it's being used. Won't let me format it, and using my system repair disk did absolutely nothing. So I reinstalled from the oem disk, and it fixed absolutely nothing, just made me have to get new activation codes for my software.

Start digging some more, and tried other things that also yielded me no results. So I decided to buy Windows 7 Ultimate full retail, and just format the whole drive and do a fresh install of windows 7 Ultimate, and get rid of all the partitions, including the hidden one and the recovery partition as well, making it one drive, with one drive letter, and I'll make a partition later. Well, I have the 7 Ultimate full retail, and it wont let me do this. It wants me to select which existing partition I want to install it to.

So my question is this...how do I do a destructive format of my entire hard drive, wiping all partitions away? I want to install this Ultimate to a fresh drive, not messed with by someone who can't speak my language enough to help me out.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Rick

 

[Joe S]

First you need to check and see if you have all of the preinstalled software and drivers you may need. Do you have a legit Windows 7 install disk for your version? Most PCs today come with a restore partition and no disk. You can make a copy of the recovery partition on DVD in case you need it.
Joe

 

[Saltgrass]

Could you take a snipping tool picture of the Disk Management window and attach using the paperclip?

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Like Saltgrass said.

This used to be so easy, just pop in a dos boot disk and away you go.

Have you tried doing this logged in as Administrator?
This can sometimes get around a lot of the "You Can't Do That" issues.

How to Enable the Administrator Account

Open the command prompt with elevated privileges by clicking the Start orb, All Programs, Accessories, right-click Command Prompt and then select Run as administrator.

Type or cut and paste…

net user administrator /active:yes

and then press Enter.

Log out and log back in as Administrator.

When you are done undue the process by doing the same thing and pasting in

net user administrator /active:no

 

[Trouble]

So I decided to buy Windows 7 Ultimate full retail, and just format the whole drive and do a fresh install of windows 7 Ultimate, and get rid of all the partitions, including the hidden one and the recovery partition as well, making it one drive, with one drive letter, and I'll make a partition later. Well, I have the 7 Ultimate full retail, and it wont let me do this. It wants me to select which existing partition I want to install it to.

So my question is this...how do I do a destructive format of my entire hard drive, wiping all partitions away? I want to install this Ultimate to a fresh drive, not messed with by someone who can't speak my language enough to help me out.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Rick

Hello Rick:
The easiest way I know of doing this is to boot directly from the install media (may need to configure BIOS to boot from DVD or select the proper function key during post to evoke boot device menu). Select your language / keyboard options, agree to the EULA, Select Custom Advanced and on the "Where do you want to install Windows?" screen select the partitions and use the "Delete" link. See attachments.
I think you already know that this will complete obliterate any existing data on the hard drive but just a reminder.
Additionally, anything you can do in advance to obtain system drivers from the computer or hardware device manufacturer is going to help in the long run. Paying particular attention to Chipset and Disk Controller drivers (you may need if drives are set to AHCI rather that Native IDE), and of course Video, Audio, LAN, etc.
Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[Richard Carew]

Thanks for the replies. I managed to get the partition stuff corrected with Partition Wizard freeware. Windows 7 Ultimate is now installed.

Thanks again, if I run into any problems, I'll come back here with it.

Rick