Partitionning and formatting a HDD

  • Thread starter Thread starter gatt60
  • Start date Start date
G

gatt60

I have the same problem. I just bought a Fujitsu HDD 40GB. It was
formatted NTFS and somehow I deleted the partition. Presently, it has
absolutely nothing on it. When I plug it USB the device is recognized
but no letter appears in the explorer. I tried fdisk but I could not
get to the drive. The HDD will be used with WinMe and 2000. Can
someone help me in creating a FAT32 partition and formatting after.
Thank yoU
 
gatt60 said:
I have the same problem. I just bought a Fujitsu HDD 40GB. It was
formatted NTFS and somehow I deleted the partition. Presently, it has
absolutely nothing on it. When I plug it USB the device is recognized
but no letter appears in the explorer. I tried fdisk but I could not
get to the drive. The HDD will be used with WinMe and 2000. Can
someone help me in creating a FAT32 partition and formatting after.
Thank yoU
Click to expand...

I've had the exact same problem and fixed
it by assigning a drive letter first. I used Partition Magic,
but Disk Management will do the same thing.
ControlPanel/Administrative Tools/Computer
Management/Storage/DiskManagement
 
Thanks but how do you assign a drive letter first. How can we do it
with Partition Magic and with Me.
Thanks
 
gatt60 said:
Thanks but how do you assign a drive letter first. How can we do it
with Partition Magic and with Me.
Thanks
Click to expand...

I gave you directions for XP.

Disk Management will do the same thing.

ControlPanel/Administrative Tools/Computer
Management/Storage/DiskManagement

If they don't work in ME then use
PM. Just select the drive and pick a task to assign a drive letter.
 
Pen said:
Disk Management will do the same thing.

ControlPanel/Administrative Tools/Computer
Management/Storage/DiskManagement
Click to expand...


Or rt-clk MyComputer/Manage/DiskManagement.

*TimDaniels*
 
A very good program for formatting and partioning external hard drives
is the freeware program SwissKnife 3.22. It has the ability to
recognize external hard drives when windows does not.

Good luck!
 
Pen said:
I've had the exact same problem and fixed
it by assigning a drive letter first. I used Partition Magic,
but Disk Management will do the same thing.
ControlPanel/Administrative Tools/Computer
Management/Storage/DiskManagement
Click to expand...

Well, technically, you need to define a partition first before you can
assign a drive letter, right? I don't use XP Disk Mamangement myself
(BootIt NG instead), but to be precise, you can't just take a HDD w/o
anything on it (the OP indicated he deleted the only partition it had) and
assign a drive letter. Drive letters are assigned to partitions on a HD,
not the HD itself.

Anyway, just thought perhaps this was confusing the OP.

Btw, within XP itself (using Disk Management), you can't define a FAT32
partition >32GB (IIRC). That's why it's often better to use another tool
like BootIt NG, Partition Magic, etc., which *can*. When I get a new
external HD (w/ or w/o enclosure), I always hook it up via USB or IDE
channel and use BootIt NG to define and format a FAT32 partition (to
circumvent this limitation). Now when XP boots, it will recognize the HD
and automatically assign a drive letter. Of course, if you prefer NTFS,
it's easier and more straight forward to simply use XP Disk Managment. But
for FAT32, XP's inability to define >32GB FAT32 partitions requires a
workaround as I've described here.

HTH

Jim
 
Jim said:
Btw, within XP itself (using Disk Management), you can't
define a FAT32 partition >32GB (IIRC). That's why it's
often better to use another tool like BootIt NG, Partition Magic,
etc., which *can*. When I get a new external HD (w/ or w/o
enclosure), I always hook it up via USB or IDE channel and
use BootIt NG to define and format a FAT32 partition (to
circumvent this limitation). Now when XP boots, it will
recognize the HD and automatically assign a drive letter.
Of course, if you prefer NTFS, it's easier and more straight
forward to simply use XP Disk Managment. But for FAT32,
XP's inability to define >32GB FAT32 partitions requires a
workaround as I've described here.
Click to expand...


Can WinXP access the full extent of a FAT32 partition
that's greater than 32GB in size?

*TimDaniels*
 
Can WinXP access the full extent of a FAT32 partition
that's greater than 32GB in size?
Click to expand...


Yes, WinXP has full access support of any size FAT32
partition, it just can't create them over 32GB.
 
Jim said:
Btw, within XP itself (using Disk Management), you can't define
a FAT32 partition >32GB (IIRC). That's why it's often better to
use another tool like BootIt NG, Partition Magic, etc., which *can*.
When I get a new external HD (w/ or w/o enclosure), I always
hook it up via USB or IDE channel and use BootIt NG to define
and format a FAT32 partition (to circumvent this limitation).
Now when XP boots, it will recognize the HD and automatically
assign a drive letter. Of course, if you prefer NTFS, it's easier
and more straight forward to simply use XP Disk Managment.
But for FAT32, XP's inability to define >32GB FAT32 partitions
requires a workaround as I've described here.
Click to expand...


You may be interested in this free utility called fat32format that
will format FAT32 partitions larger than 32GB:
http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm

I've never used it because I use NTFS formatting.

*TimDaniels*
 
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