Select the product you need help with

'Enter Volume Label' when the Label Is Corrupt

Article ID: 83139 - View products that this article applies to.

This article was previously published under Q83139

SUMMARY

Some versions of MS-DOS require you to enter the volume label when formatting a hard drive or deleting an MS-DOS drive using the FDISK command. However, if the volume label is corrupted or was changed by a third-party utility to contain lowercase letters, this is impossible.

To correct this problem, you can use the LABEL command to delete the volume label, then use FORMAT or FDISK. When you are prompted for the volume label, press ENTER (which indicates no volume label).

If LABEL doesn't successfully delete the volume label, you can use the following debug script to erase the first sector of the drive and make it appear unformatted. FORMAT and FDISK can then be used.

MORE INFORMATION

To erase the first sector of the drive, do the following.

NOTE: You should not use the following procedure if you are not planning to delete or reformat the drive in question. In general, this is necessary only when the organization of the drive or the information in the drive has been severely damaged.

To start Debug, type debug and press ENTER key.

 Debug     Enter Debug
 Prompt    Commands         Comments
 -------   -------------    --------
    -      F 100 L 200 0    Create a sector of zeros at address 100.
    -      W 100 2 0 1      Write information at address 100 to sector
                            0 of drive 2*
                            *2 is drive C, 3 is drive D,
                             4 is drive E, and so on.
    -      Q                Quit DEBUG.

For MS-DOS versions 5.x and later, you can use the following command to resolve this issue:

   format /q /v:VOLUME x:

where "VOLUME" is the new volume name you want to assign to the hard disk drive, and "x:" is the drive letter you want to format.

MS-DOS versions 3.x FORMAT commands require you to enter the volume label to format a hard disk.

In all MS-DOS versions, FDISK requires you to enter a volume label; however, in MS-DOS 5.0 and later it checks for unprintable characters in the volume label. If unprintable characters exist, FDISK treats the volume label as if does not exist.

Properties

Article ID: 83139 - Last Review: November 16, 2006 - Revision: 2.1

APPLIES TO

Microsoft MS-DOS 3.1
Microsoft MS-DOS 3.2 Standard Edition
Microsoft MS-DOS 3.21 Standard Edition
Microsoft MS-DOS 3.3 Standard Edition
Microsoft MS-DOS 3.3a
Microsoft MS-DOS 4.0 Standard Edition
Microsoft MS-DOS 4.01 Standard Edition
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.0 Standard Edition
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.0a
Microsoft MS-DOS 6.0 Standard Edition
Microsoft MS-DOS 6.2 Standard Edition
Microsoft MS-DOS 6.21 Standard Edition
Microsoft MS-DOS 6.22 Standard Edition

KB83139

Retired KB Content Disclaimer

This article was written about products for which Microsoft no longer offers support. Therefore, this article is offered "as is" and will no longer be updated.