Volume label is maximum 11 characters. If it was telling you your entry was invalid, I'd guess either it was longer than that, or else contained non-permitted characters, such as punctuation marks. The label you enter will be what the format programme gives to the re-formatted disk when it has finished and need not be the same as the old label the disk had before. Rosemary "David W Wood" writes: The HDD on my lap top went caput a couple of weeks ago - possibly only a registry error though. I have replaced it and have put the old one into an I D E to U S B converter and been able to retrieve all the data from it. I now have two problems: Q1: when trying to format the drive through the command prompt, I am asked for a volume label. Several attempted answers have come up with an error message saying that it is invalid. What should I enter? Q2: I have managed to retrieve a .pst file from which I would like to extract some information. How do I achieve this with Microsoft Outlook on the new configuration? TIA David -- Rosemary F. Johnson 2012? Not in my name!! *** BCAB List administration *** If you wish to unsubscribe, set vacation,, request a digest or carry out routine maintenance on your subscription to the list then go to: http://www.bcab.org.uk/mailing-list.html If you wish to discuss the administration of the list then contact: secretary@xxxxxxxxxxx