# External HD help?



## Magnus (Aug 14, 2007)

Hiya :3 

I got myself a 500Gb external hard disk, i'm happy^^
but now i want to make some partitions on it, BUT... Norton Partition Magic is not supported by M$ Windbox Vista -_- 

Halp ; ;


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## net-cat (Aug 14, 2007)

Start Menu
Type "Computer Management" in the search box and press enter.
Go to "Storage"
Go to "Disk Management"


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## Magnus (Aug 14, 2007)

omg you solved my problem in a few seconds O_O

I love you <3


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## DavidN (Aug 14, 2007)

You can also change your drive letters around from the same place - I just thought I'd mention it as I only discovered it last week and I'm ridiculously excited by having an A: drive (USB Flash disk, this time) for the first time since about 2002.


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## Magnus (Aug 14, 2007)

that i do see. The only thing i could find is the formatting option, not the Partition one ; ; 
it is NTFS now.


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## Magnus (Aug 14, 2007)

Poke... 

not to be iritating ; ; but i really want to know what to do next, i'm selling my computer in a few days and need to save my data.


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## net-cat (Aug 14, 2007)

Well, I've got Vista Business, and I've been avoiding Home Basic like the plague. It should be the same, though.

See attachment.


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## Magnus (Aug 15, 2007)

Ah i think i have it, i shrinked it and now its formatting again.


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## HaTcH (Aug 15, 2007)

You can sell your old computer, just keep the hard drive. It's okay to un plug a hard drive, you wont lose any data.

Then you can put it in your new computer, temporarily and copy all your files. Once you're done saving the files, just either keep the old hard drive or format it and stick it back in the computer you're selling.

Be warned, shrinking a file system will make it slower, as mathematical processes occur whenever you read/write a compressed volume. Personally I avoid NTFS, as I don't see any advantage over FAT32 for format. For a home user, the only thing NTFS allows you to do is have files over 4 GB. But that wasn't my main reason for going back to FAT32. Linux is happier with FAT partitions than it is with NTFS (as write support is not ready yet).


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## Magnus (Aug 15, 2007)

eh? 
i thought more partitions was better... also i have lots of stuff over the 4Gb limit, dvd's games... and isn't FAT32 for older pc's?


I have no new comp yet, i'm selling my old one to get some money i can safe up for the new computer. ; ; sucks to be poor.


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## net-cat (Aug 15, 2007)

"Shrink" and "compress" are not the same thing. Shrink changes the geometry of the partition, allowing you to create additional partitions. NTFS since Windows 2000 does have built in support for compression, though.

There are some fundamental technical differences between NTFS and FAT32. FAT32 uses a linked structure which makes random access and impossible. Most operating systems emulate it, but every time you need to go backwards in a file in FAT32, you have to go back to the beginning and read forward. In NTFS, ext2 and just about every filesystem in existence uses a structure where random access is possible. Try unzipping a large ZIP file on FAT32 vs NTFS. (ZIP files are read from the back of the file.)

FAT32's linked structure also makes it a lot more sensitive to fragmentation, as it has to read through every sector of a file to get to the one it wants. NTFS and ext2 still suffer from fragmentation, but to a much smaller extent as all it has to do is read the index and go to the sector. All the filesystems in my house are NTFS or BSD's UFS2. I haven't had to defragment in years.

There are quite a few other features of NTFS (encryption, ACLs, sparse files, hard links, junction points [like symlinks]) that aren't present in FAT32, but home users aren't likely to need them.

Also, ntfs-3g for NTFS write support in Linux and many other operating systems.


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## HaTcH (Aug 15, 2007)

As a windows XP home user, with only 1 account on this computer I say this stuff. If I were a business and needed multiple accounts, quotas, etc etc, some of this might be different.

I stayed away from NTFS for another reason which I didn't mention. I like control over my file system. If there is a file I want to delete, I want to be able to freakin delete it. Further, if a file exists, I want to be able to see it/open it! Windows installers do this a lot, dumping temporary files (often ones I need, but don't need/want to do the whole install) in temp or in random spots. 

You're things over 4GB... I dont know of any video game, computer software, anything like that which exists as one single file. DVD's store files in 1GB chunks, and video games, may be 10Gigs to install, but they install like 10 thousand smaller files  

Windows uses NTFS to hid crap from its users. Sometimes this is good, like hiding critical operating bits, but why does it try and hide things like logs and caches? For that matter, why does it try and hide things even to the administrator account? For that, and the previous mentioned reasons, I stuck with FAT32 (at least for my C: drive)

And having lots of partitions is not good. Having lots of hard drives is, but not lots of partitions there's really no reason to break a 500 gig hard drive up 4 ways (or more). There isn't. You can get the same effect by just putting folders in the root directory! First of all, copy files between partitions on the same physical disk becomes stupidly inefficient. So if you want to put your operating system somewhere, give it its own partition. Same goes for the 'page file on its own partition' trick. Sure, the page file can be put on a separate partition, but but if its on the same physical device as the operating system, then there's no gain in performance, in fact, you'd probably get a slight decrease. 

I just wish that windows XP supported without stupid extra software, unix partitions. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to install windows on Ext3? Wow.

OHH yeah! 'Nother reason why NTFS is bad! You can't start your computer from a floppy disk and fix issue with missing/moved files! That was another reason I went Fat32.. I was installing windows 98 in dual boot with XP for a while, and needed 98 to be able to boot from the main hard drive (Where XP was installed).

~Edit: So they did work out NTFS rw? Why isn't it in the kernel yet??

~Edit2: Defragmenting.. yeah, that is a crux with FAT systems. I believe thats so because of FAT32's age, back when hard drives spun slower and couldn't access data as quickly.. .Therefore, to write a file you just slapped as much of it as you could where ever the read/write head was at the time. Boosts performance, but really only in 1 way. :/


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## Magnus (Aug 15, 2007)

to think that you can find useful help on a furry site  
this info is better then i get on actual computer sites ><

The only thing i want with my HD is to save my stuff on it, pictures, programs, games etc thats all, 
i was told that making partitions was good for such thing, 

but if formatting it to FAT32 is better then i gladly do so, 
i just don't want to lose my data anymore.


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## net-cat (Aug 15, 2007)

HaTcH said:
			
		

> I stayed away from NTFS for another reason which I didn't mention. I like control over my file system. If there is a file I want to delete, I want to be able to freakin delete it. Further, if a file exists, I want to be able to see it/open it! Windows installers do this a lot, dumping temporary files (often ones I need, but don't need/want to do the whole install) in temp or in random spots.


That still happens in FAT32.



			
				HaTcH said:
			
		

> You're things over 4GB... I dont know of any video game, computer software, anything like that which exists as one single file. DVD's store files in 1GB chunks, and video games, may be 10Gigs to install, but they install like 10 thousand smaller files


Ever edited video? Ever used an ISO of a DVD?



			
				HaTcH said:
			
		

> Windows uses NTFS to hid crap from its users. Sometimes this is good, like hiding critical operating bits, but why does it try and hide things like logs and caches? For that matter, why does it try and hide things even to the administrator account?


I'm sorry. This is bullshit.



			
				HaTcH said:
			
		

> And having lots of partitions is not good. Having lots of hard drives is, but not lots of partitions there's really no reason to break a 500 gig hard drive up 4 ways (or more). There isn't. You can get the same effect by just putting folders in the root directory! First of all, copy files between partitions on the same physical disk becomes stupidly inefficient. So if you want to put your operating system somewhere, give it its own partition. Same goes for the 'page file on its own partition' trick. Sure, the page file can be put on a separate partition, but but if its on the same physical device as the operating system, then there's no gain in performance, in fact, you'd probably get a slight decrease.


 Breaking a single drive into many partitions is good if you plan to dual boot. If you've only got one drive, it's reasonable to keep the operating system and programs on one partitions and your data on the other. (Especially for Windows, if you need to reformat.)



			
				HaTcH said:
			
		

> I just wish that windows XP supported without stupid extra software, unix partitions. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to install windows on Ext3? Wow.


Yes. But what possible business reason could Microsoft have to implement that?



			
				HaTcH said:
			
		

> OHH yeah! 'Nother reason why NTFS is bad! You can't start your computer from a floppy disk and fix issue with missing/moved files! That was another reason I went Fat32.. I was installing windows 98 in dual boot with XP for a while, and needed 98 to be able to boot from the main hard drive (Where XP was installed).


Um. BartPE, SystemRescueCD and Knoppix?



			
				HaTcH said:
			
		

> ~Edit: So they did work out NTFS rw? Why isn't it in the kernel yet??


Because ntfs-3g isn't a kernel module?



			
				HaTcH said:
			
		

> ~Edit2: Defragmenting.. yeah, that is a crux with FAT systems. I believe thats so because of FAT32's age, back when hard drives spun slower and couldn't access data as quickly.. .Therefore, to write a file you just slapped as much of it as you could where ever the read/write head was at the time. Boosts performance, but really only in 1 way. :/


Yay for a fundamental lack of understanding of how filesystems work?

Sorry if this comes off as stand-offish.



			
				Magnus said:
			
		

> The only thing i want with my HD is to save my stuff on it, pictures, programs, games etc thats all,
> i was told that making partitions was good for such thing,


In this case, it's probably not necassary.



			
				Magnus said:
			
		

> but if formatting it to FAT32 is better then i gladly do so,
> i just don't want to lose my data anymore.


If you're sticking with NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista, use NTFS. Anything else, use FAT32.


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## Ron Overdrive (Aug 15, 2007)

I agree with net-cat on this. Also a good example of a BartPE is the Ultimate Boot Disk for Windows. Full Windows XP LiveCD with tons of utilities.


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## net-cat (Aug 15, 2007)

Oh, yes. UBCD4WIN with the networking driver pack is a fantastic tool.


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## HaTcH (Aug 16, 2007)

*shrug* I have my reasons for believing what i do, I've nothing to prove 

Hope *something* was helpful.


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## Magnus (Aug 16, 2007)

Yeah, even tho you guys have both different opinions about it, i'll keep it in mind for further tryouts. i still have an old server laying around somewhere >> << >> it has SCSI disks, or something like that.


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## RailRide (Aug 21, 2007)

Now for a slightly different question which our OP may well encounter--FAT32 accomodates drive sizes far in excess of what Windows XP will permit you to format. Beyond a certain drive size, it's NTFS or nothing.

I will soon be buying a 120GB drive to place in an external FireWire enclosure (my main machine is a laptop) as a backup to an existing external drive I'm using for assorted media files. I have a Win98 tower, but it's full of drives already (3 HDD,Zip,Jaz,floppy,CDRW/DVD) and I don't want to open it up just to temporarily mount the drive to format it. That leaves either my USB-IDE adapter or the FireWire enclosure. Is there a workaround for XP's self-imposed limitation? 

The last "mirror" drive I bought (to duplicate a 80GB NAS drive on my network) had to be done up in NTFS since I wasn't aware of a way to bypass the restriction in XP. Since I want to be able to hook these drives to older systems I have working around the house, I don't _really_ want to restrict any more drives to NT-class systems.

---PCJ


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## net-cat (Aug 21, 2007)

RailRide said:
			
		

> Is there a workaround for XP's self-imposed limitation?


fat32format.exe works for me...


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## HaTcH (Aug 22, 2007)

What is the limit you're thinking of? The 137GB one? That has something to do with the controller, not the OS directly...


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## Dickie (Aug 22, 2007)

Reported

.............................


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## RailRide (Aug 22, 2007)

net-cat said:
			
		

> RailRide said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks! I ran across this very same link in the Wikipedia entry for FAT.

Trivia: XP's limitation for FAT32 is 32GB. You still need to initialize the disk in XP's Disk management first, in order to assign it a drive letter to use with the utility.

---PCJ


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## net-cat (Aug 22, 2007)

HaTcH said:
			
		

> What is the limit you're thinking of? The 137GB one? That has something to do with the controller, not the OS directly...



In Windows 2000 and XP, Microsoft has arbitrarily limited the maximum size that you can format a drive as FAT32 to 32GB.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314463
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184006



			
				RailRide said:
			
		

> Thanks! I ran across this very same link in the Wikipedia entry for FAT.


You're welcome. (That' probably where I got it from, but I don't remember.)

I use that utility to reformat external drives for people who insist that Windows 98 SE is exactly the same as XP. (And yes, such people actually exist.)


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