Need to reformat HD but cant

[powayal]

Need to reformat harddrive due to virus.

Problem is 1) Computer Management does not see Hard drive (only invisible in disk management area ... so can't reformat inside windows) 2) Will not allow me to boot up via XP disk. It says in it is booting via CD but does not go to Blue screen).

Please help

Any suggestions that will allow me to reformat my HD some other way?

thanks!

 

[aford10]

If it's your OS drive, you can't format it while in windows.

Did you get to the part where you pick the volume/partition that you want to format?

Can you get into safe mode (f8 on startup)?

 

[powayal]

thanks for reply Aford10.

Yes, I am at that spot and it only shows the DVD drive and not the HD. I reboot under safe mode as advised. When I selected "My Computer" "Management", "Storage" and "Disk Management", I get the following pop up.

"The Logical Disk Manager Service is disabled. A connection cannot be established."

Any ideas?

 

[aford10]

You'll need to boot into safe mode with networking for this. Download malwarebytes, update it, and do a thorough scan.

I'm assuming the drive you are looking to format is your C drive (OS drive). Since you are booting into that drive fine, the volume exists (whether it shows in disk management or not).

 

[powayal]

thanks again.

I downloaded the software and installed it. However, it wont update (i do have internet conection connection) and wont run. The software ran fine on my other computer. My McAfee wont update either so it seems like something is blocking it intentionally. Any other way to run that scan?

Yes, I only have one HD and i m running XP.

 

[blackhawk1928]

thanks for reply Aford10.

Yes, I am at that spot and it only shows the DVD drive and not the HD. I reboot under safe mode as advised. When I selected "My Computer" "Management", "Storage" and "Disk Management", I get the following pop up.

"The Logical Disk Manager Service is disabled. A connection cannot be established."

Any ideas?

-^That means a service for your disk mananger is disabled.
-Go to Start>Run>Type: Services.msc
-A window should open. Find the following services:
"Logical Disk Mananger"
"Logical Disk Mananger Administrative Service"
^Make sure those two services are enabled, right click and click start on both of them.
-Now everything should work. Also, you can't format your HDD from inside windows. As aford said, you must use a CD to do this. On boot up, you can press the designated key to choose a boot device or an easier way is to enter bios and set so that your DVD boots before the hard drive boot. This way, it will promt you to boot from CD and should give a couple of seconds to do it, boot inside, delete partitions and reformat your hard drive into NTFS Its very simple, a wizard will guide your through the process.

 

[powayal]

thank you guys.

found the reason that I wasn't able to reboot from the CD. My bios didn't have UBS enabled for my Keyboard. Weird that the Delete button works and I am able to enter the bios though.

I am reformatting now so the other problems are irrelevant now.