my 80 GB hardisk is partitioned as follows into four:
C,D,E,F,G..
Cis the primary partition however my operating system is in the drive E.
i want to format drive C but when i go to my computer, right click on the C drive and select format.. it says either some disk utility is profram is running or some application is running.. now I have no programs or files open or running on the computer which are frm Cdrive..
infact Cdrive just has stored data like music and a few word documents, which are not in use at all.
I also tried formatting thru the command prompt but it gave an error Volume in use n i ll have to dismount it.. i selected yes then it said unable to dismount hence cannot be formatted..
Again since C is the promary partion, this partion cant even be deleted..
is there a way to solve this problem.. without using the operating system cd.. atleast can someone tell me what this means coz i have no idea.. thanks in advance

just curious, how did you manage to install windows on the D drive? this could be a total noob question on my behalf

hi, you can't delete or either format your active partition that windows is running, if you really want to get rid of your hdd, plug it as a slave on another computer..then do as you desire...

Well, Windows is using some drives while running, you should format your partition from other os such as MS-DOS, Linux or ....
use bootable disk, that supports NTFS/FAT32 format types. then type format c: \q(for quick format)

Hello, shyam... a bit of confusion in my mind?.... this is how I see things: the way you have partitioned your disk and your saying C: is the primary partition suggests you have one primary and one extended partition [the latter with logical drives].. Only a primary partition may be marked Active, so C: is thus your boot partition with Ntldr, Ntdetect.com and boot.ini; your OS is resident in E: - boot.ini points to E:
There is no way Windows will let you format the boot partition C: because it would lose its boot files.
Now I may be wrong.. please confirm from Computer management /Disk management which partition is marked active....
If I am correct about your disk structure and you use a third party format tool your sys will be unbootable unless you run Windows Setup > Repair...

thank you all for the quick response.. i will check n try all the sugestions

well gerbil i really do not know much about operating system troubleshooting.. and i have never formatted C drive. which is my promary partition. the firsta time i had setup the computer.. i had used win 98.. made the partions and then loaded xp on E..and then recently when i couldnt format C i manually deleted all the windows files frm C.. but i think i can format drive C using a cd.. but could u please explain how it works.. as u were talking about the Ntldr, Ntdetect.com and boot.ini.. what r these n how do they get loaded n where.. coz i had setup up xp on E using a cd.. and there r no windows files in the C drive

sorry for not replying immediately.. btw i installed in E drive.. however..
the first time i had setup the comp.. i partitioned the hard disk.using win 98. then i used the xp cd n it asked which partition to load the os n i selected E..

you should have selected the first partition being C:\ to save you the problems you are having now,if i were you i would backup data and format the whole dang thing and reload winxp on the C:\ partition

All far too confusing for me too follow!

Won't PartitionMagic sort this out? Merge all the drives into one? Or is there some restriction in the constellation you've got?