Partitioning an External Drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Scott
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Scott

I'm setting up a Maxtor 250GB external drive to restore the hard drive on several
of my computers in case any of the drives fail.

I have two questions:

1. I want to set up multiple partitions on the Maxtor drive. In Win XP, under
Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Disk Management, it looks like the first
step is to delete the 250GB partition on the external drive. After I do that,
will it then show me the option of setting up multiple partitions and will I be
able to do some in NTFS and others in FAT32 (for my Win98 machines)?

2. I'm debating between using Maxtor's included Dantz Retrospect software to
completely restore a failed drive...or...use Acronis 8.0, which I purchased some
time ago for this purpose. Any thoughts on which is the most reliable way to
go?

Thanks!
Scott
 
No clue about the partition issue - but I can recommend Acronis True Image.
I've used it for over a year, and it's saved my bacon numerous times.

When I insert the recovery CD and boot from it, it gives me the option to
image all the drives attached to the target computer - Both SATA and PATA
(without having to install the program on it first) - and it even detects the
USB hard drive!
 
usasma said:
No clue about the partition issue - but I can recommend Acronis True Image.
I've used it for over a year, and it's saved my bacon numerous times.

When I insert the recovery CD and boot from it, it gives me the option to
image all the drives attached to the target computer - Both SATA and PATA
(without having to install the program on it first) - and it even detects the
USB hard drive!
Click to expand...

usasma,

OK, I think I can figure out the partition procedure. When using your Recovery CD,
are you saying that after booting with it, you can image the OS system as well as
everything else onto any drive? I ask this because Dantz Retrospect requires that
you install the OS first, then Retrospect, and then image the backed up drive onto the
new hard drive.

Scott
 
Scott said:
I'm setting up a Maxtor 250GB external drive to restore the hard drive on several
of my computers in case any of the drives fail.

I have two questions:

1. I want to set up multiple partitions on the Maxtor drive. In Win XP, under
Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Disk Management, it looks like the first
step is to delete the 250GB partition on the external drive. After I do that,
will it then show me the option of setting up multiple partitions and will I be
able to do some in NTFS and others in FAT32 (for my Win98 machines)?

2. I'm debating between using Maxtor's included Dantz Retrospect software to
completely restore a failed drive...or...use Acronis 8.0, which I purchased some
time ago for this purpose. Any thoughts on which is the most reliable way to
go?

Thanks!
Scott
Click to expand...

Update: I installed Maxtor's One-Touch and Dantz Retrospect. I also installed
Acronis 8.0 on my Win XP desktop. Now, when I go to My Network Places
on my Win XP notebook, I can't access the c drive on my XP desktop. The
message says: "Not enough server storage is available to process this command.".
However, from the XP desktop, I have no problem accessing the c drive on the
XP notebook. My XP notebook can access files on other Win 95 and Win98
desktops on the network. I uninstalled Retrospect, but no change. Is it possible
that Acronis is blocking access from the XP notebook to the XP desktop--where
Acronis is installed?

Thanks!
Scott
 
Update: After I uninstalled Acronis, there is no longer a problem accessing files on
the (Acronis) XP desktop from my XP notebook. A puzzling note: When reading
the .pdf Help file for Acronis 8.0, it identifies the software as the "Server for Windows"
version. Is this correct for a home PC?

Thanks!
Scott
 
Scott said:
I'm setting up a Maxtor 250GB external drive to restore the hard drive on several
of my computers in case any of the drives fail.

I have two questions:

1. I want to set up multiple partitions on the Maxtor drive. In Win XP, under
Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Disk Management, it looks like the first
step is to delete the 250GB partition on the external drive. After I do that,
will it then show me the option of setting up multiple partitions and will I be
able to do some in NTFS and others in FAT32 (for my Win98 machines)?

2. I'm debating between using Maxtor's included Dantz Retrospect software to
completely restore a failed drive...or...use Acronis 8.0, which I purchased some
time ago for this purpose. Any thoughts on which is the most reliable way to
go?

Thanks!
Scott
Click to expand...

Update:

I got everything partitioned properly, using Acronis 8.0 (new build 903), and Acronis
support solved my "no file access from a networked computer" problem with a registry
tweak. Now everything is working fine.

Scott
 
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