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Question

Can't delete or format hard drive partitions

Feb 16, 2015 12:27AM PST

I had made quite a mess of my Windows 7 install and had a spare unused hard drive, so decided to go with brand new install.
Install worked great including rekey to as registered.
Running old drive as secondary to retrieve contents of partitions. (Had all Documents, favorites, users ECT... in folder in one.)
Third time to boot MSI bios started seeing both OS's and had to put the old drive on a usb adapter plugged in after boot.
All things done, new install running like a Cadillac and went to format, delete, erase. Win7 said I don't have Administrator rights to delete or format the partitions and that it cannot format the partition with the OS because it is the "Boot Drive".
Put my Easeus Partition boot disk in and it didn't see the drive plugged in to the usb adapter.(???) So turned it all off plugged it into the computer and Easeus froze up. Turned off unplugged all other drives and it found the drive then with the OS partition listed as BOOT DRIVE. Not Primary, Logical or unassigned. Wouldn't show options to do anything with that partition and all options for the other partitions produced error messages.

All advice within my pocketbook will be tried.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Did you try a GPARTED CD?
Feb 16, 2015 12:35AM PST

Lots of tutorials on its use so I'll pause here.

But about those other drives. Not only power off but unplug then to avoid disasters.
Bob

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PS. No make/model given. Some have this feature.
Feb 16, 2015 12:37AM PST
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Details
Feb 16, 2015 2:02PM PST

Win 7 32bit, WD Green 1.5 Tbit, MSI 990 military MB, AMD FX Six core, 4Gig DDR3

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Which MSI 990?
Feb 16, 2015 11:13PM PST
http://us.msi.com/product/mb/990FXAGD80.html#hero-overview for example is one but I want to find the exact model and check for a boot sector protection in the BIOS.

About the drive with power and no control cable, it's not something I've worried at all. Part of my background included trips to drive makers and they test drives without a control cable all the time. I guess folk could fret about that.
Bob
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That is the one
Feb 17, 2015 12:23AM PST

Just followed the link in your second post and that sounds like what I am fighting. Had never ran across it before.

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The "Security" section in the BIOS was not in the manual.
Feb 17, 2015 12:35AM PST

Sorry but that's where I'd look. Sorry but if there's no doc, there's no doc.
Bob

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Answer
Start again
Feb 16, 2015 11:09AM PST

You had too much going on, it appears. I suggest you leave the "spare HD" installed, "ALONE". then run KILLDISK or DBAN drive wipers to return the HD to be blank again. Once done, reformat the HD to the format you like, using your Easeus s/w. Don't use Easeus until it has been wiped. Leave your old HD out of the loop until the spare drive is ready.
Once all done, return the old drive back to where it was and install cleaned spare. Now, reboot and use the windows transfer service" to get the old pgms/files as required. If these doesn't work or becomes hosed, then do the following.

Have the spare HD cleaned or wiped again or start w/o doing the above. Start your install of Win7 to spare HD alone and allowed it to finish. Once done, update it as necessary and assure all drivers, etc. are present and all looks OK. Now, attach your old HD and swap or transfer the files/pgms. as required.

You can use your Easeus pgm. to make an "image" of your recovery partition if that was the reason of all prior attempts to have partitions, etc. in the old repair. that way you won't lose or hose that critical partition. Sometimes I use "Clonezilla" to make a clone of the HD. Then using "Gparted", delete the "C partiton" as it still has any problems when cloned. You can make the recovery partition "active" under Gparted, in order to install from the recovery partition as well. If all this makes any sense to you, proceed. If not, then google the prime pgms. I suggested. Easeus should have been able to do this or most of it, review what it offers, especially if you have the paid version, the free version is limited.

tada -----Willy Happy

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Unplugged or plugged
Feb 16, 2015 2:12PM PST

When I disconnect a drive I always pull the power. Leaving the Sata/eide cable connected makes me nervous but I will not have a drive running without control.
I will try Bobs Gpart first and if that fails yours. Although "Killdisk" sounds scary.

Thank you both. Hope others post in. All ideas are worth looking at.

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(NT) and???
Feb 18, 2015 12:28PM PST
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Answer
It worked?
Feb 18, 2015 1:45PM PST

Or something worked.
Put the drive back in the case one more time to see what Gparted could do and all issues were gone. I had full access to it so used Windows to format all partitions and then Easeus to write 0s. Hurray!
So then I went to setup raid 1. Read the manual. looked complicated. It was! What I ended up with Win 7 didn't like and the boot wouldn't let me go back into bios setting so I shut down turned off unplugged and jumper reset the bios. No more boot. Board turns on and runs everything but no boot.
Bought another board and will take that one to Fry's and have them reset the bios.
Me and Alfred E Newman have a lot in common.

Thank You guys for all your help. I learned a lot.

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Answer
Re: Can't delete or format HD partition
Mar 18, 2015 11:27PM PDT

If your hard disk is currently set up as a single partition, then you can't delete it. You also can't delete the system partition, boot partition, or any partition that contains the virtual memory paging file, because Windows needs this information to start correctly.