Trouble formatting a partition

I'm having an issue formatting a partition, it won't do it because there's something in use in the partition. I have deleted (supposedly) everything in the drive (Backed it all up to my TB hard drive), except for a folder that has mysteriously become inaccessible regardless of my attempts of getting around it with admin, and is supposed to be 0 byes in size. However, when I go into My Computer it says that there is 15 GB of stuff in the partition. I'm at a loss as to what could be going on, and I need that partition to go away so I can expand my main partition into it; space issues, long story involving my naivety and the amount of space that Win7 requires (Neither here nor there).

So I need to either:

A. Find a way to delete the folder and it's supposedly non-existent contents then format it normally.
B. Find some other program to format for windows.
or
C. Cut my losses and format the whole thing and start from a fresh install. (A last resort that I want to avoid if at all possible.)

Thanks in advance.

 

Can you give us a bit more info please? How big are the disk, the Win 7 partition, and this other partition, and what is the file system for each? You can get all this information by right clicking Computer > Manage > Disk Management

 

15gb sounds rather like a recovery partition

 

That's my suspicion too, it's why I'm asking for partition info.

 

As Earthling asked, the partition information would be helpful
For instance a hidden (recovery) partition will show 0 bytes while hidden- The partition is usually, I find, 007 for a recovery partition.
It is possible to change the recovery partition ref to the same as a bootable partition, using PHWE5, and access it to delete the files , but I would save my data first, if necessary- Once the files are visible, then you can delete them. Have you tried formatting that partition, if you can see it in disc management console- then you could make it logical and as extended partition to get full use of the drive.

 

http://www.filecluster.com/downloads/Partition-Wizard-Home-Edition.html

I have used this particular one,a couple of times when messing with old laptop hard drives

 

I'm just a bit concerned that the OP may not realise it's probably his recovery partition he is attempting to format, or understand the consequences should he succeed. In any case, if it is just a small partition, and he has space problems on his C drive, it probably isn't the answer anyway.

But unless we get more info there isn't much point offering further advice I don't think.

 

Earthling
I agree, the problem can be more difficult if it is a the recovery partition, and it is at the beginning of the drive (some are at the end, an not much problem)
bOOe has said he would rather not format and re-install, but will if he has to, so I honestly don't think that partition will be relevent.
Without bOOe coming back, to tell us we have been guessing (It is Christmas)
I am surmising that he has upgraded to W7, and also assuming that he formatted , if it was Xp, in which case his recovery partition (if that is what it is) will probably not work correctly, as he will have formatted the drive-
As he has a 1tb backup, I am assuming he has not enough room left on his hard drive to enable him to burn anything, and if he has insufficient space, it can play up when trying to copy to his external backup.

 

Ok, sorry about my absence. Basically this is what was going on with the hard drive situation. I had a 500GB HDD that I partitioned 15GB (NOT! enough) dedicated to windows 7 and windows 7 only, and the rest of the 500 Gig to everything else when I first installed it. Months passed and updates and programs putting stuff in App data, among other places, filled the puny 15 gigabytes it to the brim. I couldn't update, install anything, or watch youtube videos; But I could still play games, so it wasn't that high on the list of priorities for me, until Christmas when I got two of the best flight sims in history, but couldn't install them. Absolute torture. So I set out and looked for a fix.

So, I bought the TB hard drive, a week or so ago, so I could fix the issue once and for all. I was originally planning on doing a fresh install on the 500, no partitions and leaving the TB for everything else, but I chanced upon a nice little thread on some windows forum that said I can extend and shrink partitions on the fly in windows. So, I wanted to try that and see how it would work, and if I could avoid re-installing everything if I changed the drive letter to D, much less work on my part. But in tinkering around with it, I managed to kill BOOTMGR (I don't know how, but that doesn't really matter because FUBAR is FUBAR, no matter the reason) and had to re-install anyway (Good thing I backed everything up to the TB before I started messing with things).

Edit:

Oh, also. The reason I couldn't format the second partition was because I had a Page file on it.

 

Pleased to see you worked it out