Have you tried DISKPART? Here's some instructions, give this a go and let me know how you get on.
- Find the drive in Disk Management and note its disk number.
- If this is the only hard drive other than the internal (and you only have one internal drive), it should be "Disk 1".
- Click start and select Run.
- Type COMMAND and press enter.
- In the DOS window which opens, type DISKPART and press enter.
- If you get an error message that the program is not found, you may download it from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/tools/new/diskpart-
o.asp
- Type SELECT DISK # (where # is the disk number you found previously in Disk Management).
- Then type CLEAN and press enter.
- Type EXIT, enter, type EXIT again and the DOS windows should close.
- Now, initialize the drive normally
Back in Disk Management
- The Initialize and Convert Disk Wizard will open. Select Next. Select the disk to initialize. Select Next and then Finish. If this wizard does not show you will need to manually start it by right clicking on the drive, showing in the bottom window of disk management (it will have a red "Do Not Enter" type of sign over the drive number), and selecting initialize.
- Once the drive is initialized, right-click on the unallocated space of the disk, then select New Partition. Select Next.
- The New Partition Wizard will open. Select Next.
- Select the partition type. Select Next.
- Specify the partition size. Select Next.
- Assign a drive letter or Path. Select Next.
- Select Format Partition. Use NTFS or Fat 32* if the partition will be Windows XP or Windows 2000. If you are setting up a partition for Win 98se, you will need to select Fat 32. Important: Effective in Windows XP, Microsoft prevents users from making a FAT32 partition that is larger than 32GB. The reason is that certain file operations and file utilities cause problems when FAT32 partition is larger than 32GB.
- Select Next and Finish. The disk will initialize.
Hope that helps.
