NTFS and external USB hard disk

  • Thread starter Thread starter Stephen Aldous
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Stephen Aldous

I have Win XP Pro SP2
I also have an external Lacie 250GB hard disk I want to store my Virtual PC
files on. But, it is formatted at FAT32 and I can't put a file on there that
is over 4GB. So, I tried to convert the drive to NTFS, but Windows won't let
me do this. It keeps telling me the disk is dirty and to run chkdsk / f.
Which I have done and completes fine finding no problems on the drive. Yet
convert e: /fs:NTFS still does not convert the drive reporting it is dirty.
What is causing this and how do I fix it? I have tons of data on the drive
so I can't re-partition it as I don't want to loose that data. I need to
convert it to NTFS.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks
 
Anyone? I've ran chkdsk and no problems, I've defragmented the disk, no
problems. I've checked the sectors on the disk are all lined up ok, no
problems. Yet it will still not convert to NTFS reporting that the drive is
"dirty". No idea what this means. Google search brings up nothing. I've also
told device manager to run it as performance instead of hot swap, still no
joy. PLEASE HELP ME!!

Thanks.
 
ANYONE? SOMEONE MUST KNOW WHAT TO DO..


Stephen Aldous said:
Anyone? I've ran chkdsk and no problems, I've defragmented the disk, no
problems. I've checked the sectors on the disk are all lined up ok, no
problems. Yet it will still not convert to NTFS reporting that the drive
is "dirty". No idea what this means. Google search brings up nothing. I've
also told device manager to run it as performance instead of hot swap,
still no joy. PLEASE HELP ME!!

Thanks.
Click to expand...
 
ANYONE? SOMEONE MUST KNOW WHAT TO DO..
Click to expand...

No idea. Have been several posts in the last month about this brand of
drive (LaCie) so may be something specific to how they are prepared or some
special extra added by the manufacturer. Suggest checking with their tech
support.
 
My thought is that files are in use. In any case, have you tried using the
Safely Remove Hardware function in the notification area to unmount the
drive, unplugging, and then plugging back in?

Using the Safely Remove Hardware function flushes pending writes to the
drive before closing the handle. I think 'dirty' is referring to a state in
which the drive is waiting for a signal that no more writes are pending.
Pardon my faulty vocab here, but that is what I think is going on. When you
reconnect the drive might be 'clean' again.

--
Colin Barnhorst [MVP Windows - Virtual Machine]
(Reply to the group only unless otherwise requested)
Colin Barnhorst said:
Check your post in the Virtualpc newsgroup for my suggestion.

--
Colin Barnhorst [MVP Windows - Virtual Machine]
(Reply to the group only unless otherwise requested)
Stephen Aldous said:
I have Win XP Pro SP2
I also have an external Lacie 250GB hard disk I want to store my Virtual
PC files on. But, it is formatted at FAT32 and I can't put a file on
there that is over 4GB. So, I tried to convert the drive to NTFS, but
Windows won't let me do this. It keeps telling me the disk is dirty and
to run chkdsk / f. Which I have done and completes fine finding no
problems on the drive. Yet convert e: /fs:NTFS still does not convert the
drive reporting it is dirty. What is causing this and how do I fix it? I
have tons of data on the drive so I can't re-partition it as I don't want
to loose that data. I need to convert it to NTFS.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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