Can't delete partitions on old laptop drive?

[mkessler9]

This topic is very popular, but for whatever reason, the 100+ websites I have visited today have not helped. I've had this issue before with other drives, but I eventually figured out how to format/delete everything on the drive. 

 

So I'm putting an SSD in my ASUS laptop. The original HDD is 1tb, so naturally, I want it in my gaming pc to use for extra video storage. I have been trying to delete the partitions for the last hour to no avail. The old OS has Windows 10 on it. I've tried just about every free software I've been able to find, along with trying to you DISKPART.

 

Any help would be appreciated. 

 

EDIT: 

Maybe I wasn't clear, I'm not booting onto this disk, I  connected it to my Gaming PC

[ARikozuM]

Does the partition have an OS?

[mkessler9]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

Does the partition have an OS?

Yes, it had/has windows 10 on it.

[Naeaes]

Tell us more about your rig. Which drive is your OS on? What are the error messages you've received? What commands did you try in Diskpart?

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, mkessler9 said:

Yes, it had/has windows 10 on it.

Attach it to a different computer and use "clean all override" through diskpart

[Naeaes]

1 minute ago, mkessler9 said:

Yes, it had/has windows 10 on it.

Well that's it. You can't remove the partition you're booting into. For future reference, you can't dismantle the car you're driving or demolish the building you're in.  

Install Windows on the SSD, install the HDD as secondary drive and boot to the new OS on the SSD. Use the clean command in diskpart

[mkessler9]

1 minute ago, Naeaes said:

Well that's it. You can't remove the partition you're booting into. For future reference, you can't dismantle the car you're driving or demolish the building you're in.  

Install Windows on the SSD, install the HDD as secondary drive and boot to the new OS on the SSD. Use the clean command in diskpart

Maybe I wasn't clear, I'm not booting onto this disk, I  connected it to my Gaming PC.

[Naeaes]

1 minute ago, mkessler9 said:

Maybe I wasn't clear, I'm not booting onto this disk, I  connected it to my Gaming PC.

OK then. Just run CMD as admin, run diskpart and clean it. 

[mkessler9]

3 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

Attach it to a different computer and use "clean all override" through diskpart

This is what I get when I try that command.

[Naeaes]

3 minutes ago, mkessler9 said:

This is what I get when I try that command.

Just type in clean

[mkessler9]

1 minute ago, Naeaes said:

Just type in clean

Trust me, I tried the proper commands about 10 times before posting this thread, but to prove it, here

[ARikozuM]

2 minutes ago, mkessler9 said:

Trust me, I tried the proper commands about 10 times before posting this thread, but to prove it, here

Are you booting into disk 2?

[mkessler9]

3 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

Are you booting into disk 2?

Negative. I'm booting off of disk 0.

[Naeaes]

3 minutes ago, mkessler9 said:

Negative.

Well then your OS must be using it for the other stuff it lists in the error. Disable those and retry. Or if you have AHCI enabled in BIOS, you could try plugging the secondary HDD in only after you've booted into the OS. I'm thinking, nont having it plugged in during bootup would trick the OS to use it's original hiberfil, pagefile and the others. 

[ARikozuM]

8 minutes ago, mkessler9 said:

Negative. I'm booting off of disk 0.

Go into Disk Management and check if there are any partitions.

[mkessler9]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

Go into Disk Management and check if there are any partitions.

There is a recovery partition, efi system partition, and the main partition with "Page File" in parenthesis. 

[Gronnie]

Select each partition individually and use the command

delete partition override

[mkessler9]

3 minutes ago, Gronnie said:

Select each partition individually and use the command

delete partition override

Unfortunately, I have already tried that.

[ARikozuM]

24 minutes ago, mkessler9 said:

There is a recovery partition, efi system partition, and the main partition with "Page File" in parenthesis. 

I would load into a new OS, like Linux Mint, and try to delete those pesky partitions from there since they only stop deletion if they are in use.

[mkessler9]

1 hour ago, Naeaes said:

Well then your OS must be using it for the other stuff it lists in the error. Disable those and retry. Or if you have AHCI enabled in BIOS, you could try plugging the secondary HDD in only after you've booted into the OS. I'm thinking, nont having it plugged in during bootup would trick the OS to use it's original hiberfil, pagefile and the others. 

How would my system be trying to use it since this is the first time I've ever connected the hard drive?

[mkessler9]

Alright, so long story short, after this huge waste of time, I have fixed the issue. For whatever reason, this hard drive that is completely new to this computer, was decided to have some tasks performed on it by my computer. So I took the HDD, plugged it into one of the external usb devices and connected it to my working laptop and edited the partitions in disk manager. Now it works. I'll never get those 3 hours back...

 

P.S. Thank you to the people that suggested trying it on another computer.