New Pc

[tommy39]

recently got a new pc asus,running windows 8. i wasn't happy with the way the 1tb hard drive had been partitioned, so having a legit copy of win 8 i thought i would reformat. when it gets to the reformat stage a message appears[ hard drive locked please unlock to continue] i have admin rights . but it will not unlock.been all over the web with no luck. hoping someone can help

[VHG]

You don't need to reinstall Windows to change your partitions, you can change the size of them using various utilities, or even from within Windows I believe.

A full reinstall does seem a bit drastic.

For the hard drive locked problem does this video help?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyBrjDpsXGc

[VHG]

Note that the BIOS has changed on many (most?) new computers.

The new BIOS system is called EUFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface

This makes the BIOS much more secure and, for example, stops malware being installed on your PC and running before windows starts up.

I think it also "ties" the version of Windows on your PC and stops a thief reinstalling other software (I am not sure of the details).

However the "old" type of BIOS is still available (called legacy or similar phrases) and you can go into the BIOS and switch from EUFI mode to legacy mode and this y make a reinstall of Windows easier.

However saying all that, I still DONT think your should do a reinstall of Windows.

[ivor4781]

dead easy with this
http://download.cnet.com/EaseUS-Partition-Master-Free-Edition/3000-2248_4-10863346.html
cnet is safe web site

[tommy39]

vhg the elevated command prompt would not work due to having no permissions.
ivor .... that worked great thank's very very much
thanks for trying folk's much appreciated