Hello,

I've got too many partitions on my hard drive and I want too remove some of them. I've tried the Windows disk management app. I can't delete one partition, only make a new volume.
I decided to reformat my hard drive by doing a low level format. The proprietary Western Digital format tool does not work. I think the app is legacy from the GUI's look.
When I try to use the HDD Low Level Format Tool, I keep getting the 'Can't lock drive, make sure all open files are closed' message. I tried terminating some servies using Task Manager, but that did not help.
I'm using Win 10 Pro on a Dell Latitude E6500 64-bit machine with a WD 1600 series hard drive.
Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Please, post a screenshot of the windows disk manager with the partitions you want to delete.

You may have some success restarting the machine to Command Prompt and running Diskpart, but first it would be better to take a look at which partitions you are thinking of deleting, maybe they are necessary to the machine working.

Try using software like Paragon Hard disk manager. https://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm-personal/
It will give you a lot more options than the Windows disk management and can bypass permissions and files in use etc.

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use a third party software like paragon or easeus, it will solve the issue.

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Data Recovery Pakistan

@jimjulian, are you booting from the same drive that you are trying to format???

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A backup a day keeps DR away.