Had a very interesting experience trying to format an internal hard drive under Windows 7. This is a hard drive that was running Windows XP and then got corrupted. Rather than do a repair, I bought another internal drive and loaded Windows 7 on it. I then installed the old corrupted hard drive but every time I tried to format it, I would get a message that the drive was in use. The solution I came up with was to take it out, put it in a external enclosure and format it after plugging it into my laptop wihich is running XP. If I plugged it into the computer running Windows 7, I got the same "in use" message. I am guessing that Windows 7 was somehow recognizing and opening some of the OS files on the drive. After reinstalling the formatted drive it was initially not recognized by Windows 7 but I went into the Disk Management and activated the drive (right click on the icon to the left) and now its fine.
📎 AI Summary:
The thread discusses difficulties in formatting an old, corrupted Windows XP drive in Windows 7, with the original poster unable to format it directly due to it being in use, even after installing it as a secondary drive. Solutions involved using an external enclosure and activating the drive via Disk Management, and concerns were raised about potential issues with trying to format the primary drive or boot drives. Respondents suggest disconnecting other drives during formatting and discuss factors like partitioning and BIOS settings, while also exploring the idea that such drive-locking issues could be leveraged for security applications. Overall, the exchange is technical and insightful, focusing on troubleshooting drive formatting problems.
The thread discusses difficulties in formatting an old, corrupted Windows XP drive in Windows 7, with the original poster unable to format it directly due to it being in use, even after installing it as a secondary drive. Solutions involved using an external enclosure and activating the drive via Disk Management, and concerns were raised about potential issues with trying to format the primary drive or boot drives. Respondents suggest disconnecting other drives during formatting and discuss factors like partitioning and BIOS settings, while also exploring the idea that such drive-locking issues could be leveraged for security applications. Overall, the exchange is technical and insightful, focusing on troubleshooting drive formatting problems.
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