Robbie Ride Posted January 9, 2013 Share Posted January 9, 2013 Hi all, i'm having a small issue with formatting a secondary drive in Windows 8. I have been experiencing sluggish performance with this drive which was being used as a software backup, I backed up all the data on the drive a proceeded to format the drive in computer management, but the drive in question is listed as a system partition and won't let me format it for obvious reasons. I no idea why a secondary drive has been selected as the system partition, what I would like to know is there a way to move the system partition or do I have to reinstall Windows 8. As you can see from the screenshot, the F drive is shown as System (Active) this is the drive I cannot format Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detection Posted January 9, 2013 Share Posted January 9, 2013 If that drive is set as 1st disk (Disk 0 ) in the BIOS / SATA port, then no matter which drive you install windows on, it will always use disk 0 for the MBR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbie Ride Posted January 9, 2013 Author Share Posted January 9, 2013 If that drive is set as 1st disk (Disk 0 ) in the BIOS / SATA port, then no matter which drive you install windows on, it will always use disk 0 for the MBR No, My primary drive is on the 1st SATA port and always has been, there is no way to configure the drive in the bios other than choosing which device boots first which was my Blu-Ray drive then my primary HDD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detection Posted January 9, 2013 Share Posted January 9, 2013 No, My primary drive is on the 1st SATA port and always has been, there is no way to configure the drive in the bios other than choosing which device boots first which was my Blu-Ray drive then my primary HDD. I would physically unplug it from the board and see if you can boot If you can. just use disk management to delete the partition and format the drive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbie Ride Posted January 9, 2013 Author Share Posted January 9, 2013 I would physically unplug it from the board and see if you can boot If you can. just use disk management to delete the partition and format the drive I can't use disk management to format the drive, when I attempt to do this it says "Windows cannot format the system partition on this disk" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Veteran Posted January 9, 2013 Veteran Share Posted January 9, 2013 You can use Diskpart to do it. 1. Type "diskpart" on the Start screen, then right-click it in the results and run it as an administrator. 2. Type "list disk" to get a list of the drives on your system, then find the one you want to erase. (Double-check this!) 3. Type "select disk X" where X is the drive number from the previous command output. 4. Double-check TWICE that you selected the right drive as Diskpart will not ask for confirmations. 5. Type "list partition" and verify again it's the right drive. 6. Repeat step 4. :) 7. Type "clean" This will wipe all the partition information from the drive and you should be able to partition and format it in Disk Management. You might want to switch to the proper disk before step 5 and use the "active" command to mark it so. With your primary system partition showing as F it is possible you may find your system in an unbootable state so make sure you have a way to recover if necessary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detection Posted January 9, 2013 Share Posted January 9, 2013 I can't use disk management to format the drive, when I attempt to do this it says "Windows cannot format the system partition on this disk" You have to delete the partition before formatting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted January 9, 2013 MVC Share Posted January 9, 2013 "You have to delete the partition before formatting" what?? You format a partition, you can not format a non partitioned disk. Now he may will delete the partition, and then just create a new one and then format that. But your wording is odd if that was what you meant to say. Follow greywolf instructions and you should be good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neu B Posted January 9, 2013 Share Posted January 9, 2013 Where is your System Reserved partition? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detection Posted January 9, 2013 Share Posted January 9, 2013 "You have to delete the partition before formatting" what?? You format a partition, you can not format a non partitioned disk. Now he may will delete the partition, and then just create a new one and then format that. But your wording is odd if that was what you meant to say. Follow greywolf instructions and you should be good. Yea, well he is saying he can't format the system partition, so he would have to delete it first if it won't let him format it, and yea then make a new one Yea I see what you are saying, if he deleted it he would have no need to format it after creating a new one - should have excluded the formatting thing and just left "You need to delete the partition" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeerFan Posted January 10, 2013 Share Posted January 10, 2013 You've spelled the name of one of your drives incorrectly. Should be "Videos", not "Video's" Not trying to be a twank... just sayin'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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