Hardrive install

Did you set the jumper on the old drive to "Slave" mode?
I've done what you did before and it just shows up as another drive in Windows.

Once you correct the jumper problem on the drive. The computer should boot up. Once up, rt click on My computer, select manage, then storage. You can then select the drive and format it with choice of posion (NTSF, Fat32....). Or use a program like Partition Magic.

Thanks. Forgot about the jumper!

I've gotten to the point where the system finds the drive I want to format as disk E, and have followed your instructions to reformat. However I'm getting a message that has me concerned. After I have told windows to format, after the usual warnings comes one last message "Volume (E  primary partition is currently in use. To force the format of the volume, click yes. WARNING: forcing a format can cause unexpected errors in the application that is using this volume. Do you want to continue?"

My system disk is C. The program that created the info on E is not even installed on this computer. I don't understand what application could be currently using drive E. The program that created the info on disk E was a backup program I got with my new seagate drive. The E drive used to be the C drive on my old computer before I installed the faster seagate drive, and used the program that came with the seagate to supposedly turn the old drive into a backup drive, which is the drive I want to format now.

I hope that was understandable.

Bottom line, is it safe for me to force a format? I'm thinking this warning message is a CYA thing from microsoft, but I don't want to screw up my nice new clean install. Any ideas what program could be using the E drive?

Looks like you have some disk management software that's taking control of the disk. I used those programs many, many years ago to make the OS recognize larger hard drive capacities than the BIOS could detect.

You SHOULD be able to force format, as long as you're 100% that is the drive you want to format. If not, you can always try unhooking the disk management software, either by entering a menu after the machine POSTs, but before the OS loads or by booting from the original install disc and disabling it that way.

Personally, I find those programs more trouble than anything else, though they definitely served their purpose back in the day.

Took the plunge, no guts no glory. Foremat successful. Very strange, I'll probably never know what was running on that disk. I have never installed any disk managment utilities, the only thing I can think of is that this MB is out of a Emachines box. Its an FIC board, possibly Emachines or FIC set something in the bios? The board's only 3 years old, though. Came with an 80gig HD, I upgraded to a 120gig, no problem. Oh well, one of life's mysteries....
Thanks for your help, all