What format for external ide harddrive?

So far, I haven’t found the answer I’m looking for when I searched the board, so if there is an answer already posted, please, someone, just point me to it.

I have a brand new 120 gig ide internal hard drive which I am going to use as an external hard drive by setting it up in an external case, and then connecting it to my computer by usb2. Neither the case mfr nor the hard drive mfr has any instructions about a preferred format to put on the hard drive. Since the drive is brand new, it’s going to have to be formatted to be used.

How should I format the hard drive for external use through a USB2 connection? Fat 32, 16, NTFS? I’m running XP Pro on NTFS, I’m sure XP will recognize the external drive. But can it write to any kind of file allocation table through a USB connection? If I’m not mistaken, I believe that usb flashsticks are formatted as FAT16s. However, they are usually only 128 to 512 mbs; this new drive is 120 gigs "“ I don’t think you can put FAT16 on any more than 2 gigs.

I wasn’t smart enough to buy a pre-packaged outfit already set up with its own formatting, etc. So now I’m sitting here stumped by questions I hadn't anticipated.

Anybody, please? TIA

- maureen

 

Whats the use of this drive? Are you going to take it on the road? Is there a chance you will need a win98 machine to be able to read it(FAT)? Do you need to be able to encrypt files(NTFS)?

 

The use will be primarily for backup. Nothing encrypted. I was hoping to back up more than one machine however, which is why the "external" part appealed to me: I could just plug usb2 to any machine I want (install drivers of course for W98), and back up/copy off its critical files.

I do a lot of repair on friends computers, and I've always had to take their hard drives out and make them a slave on my computer, so I could copy off their critical files before reformatting or doing anything serious on their systems. I figured a USB2 connect would be a far easier way to save (back up) stuff before beginning any repair.

Did I just answer my own question? W98 can only read and write to Fat32, right? Maybe I should partition the drive, half Fat32, half NTFS?

I guess my big hang up here was that the only writing that I know of through USB ports is to the flashsticks, and they are primitive formatting. Didn't know if that would hold as a requirement for a larger drive or not.

 

Well, I just plugged everything in. XP made the announcement that it had found a mass storage device, but in "My Computer," there is no new device listed, no icon showing a new drive letter (in my case, it should be H Nothing. Clicked on refresh under "view," still nothing.

Went into Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management. The drive is listed as "Disk2," not initialized, 111.79 gig unallocated. When I go through the steps to initialize the disk and format it, my only choice is NTFS, I do not see an option to put a FAT32 format on any partition I create.

So, looks like I won't be able to format it through the USB connection in XP. Probably have to take it back out and make it a slave, and have windows format it for me. Then try it again.

-- later --

 

Divided the 120 into two 60 gig partitions, roughly. The NTFS format on the first partition worked fine. Tried to format the second partition in FAT32, there is no option to do so, only gives me a choice of NTFS.

What size partition will allow me to format a FAT32? Is it 8 gig? If the drive shows a partition in the maximum size for a FAT32, will XP then give me a FAT32 option to format with? I can create a couple of smaller partitions for those Win98 machines.

Will Win98 be able to write to those partitions through a usb connection?
I feel like I'm reinventing the wheel here, there must be some information on this somewhere.

Thanks anybody?

 

did you create DYNAMIC or BASIC partitions. You must use BASIC to do FAT.

Changing a Dynamic Disk Back to a Basic Disk

Before you can change a dynamic disk back to a basic disk, you must delete all dynamic volumes on the disk. Once you do this, right-click the disk and select the REVERT TO BASIC DISK command. This changes the dynamic disk to a basic disk and you can then create new partitions and logical drives on the disk.

 

Joe, if you mean "dynamic" like Raid partitions, no, I don't even know how to spread partitions across disks. If you mean that "NTFS" is dynamic and not a basic partition, that's news to me. If you're suggesting that the only way that XP can recognize the drive a USB interface is by a "basic" FAT32, then that answers the question I've been asking all along. I'll have to create a bunch of small partitions and format each one.

I used the Win XP install disk to create two partitions, and I used the install disk to format the first half as NTFS. The second partition is not formatted at this point. Those couldn't be more basic, in my book.

Actually, that's all kind of moot now, because even though the first partition is a valid NTFS partition, it's not being recognized by XP at all. I just plugged everything back up and this time I don't even have recognition by XP that there is any kind of mass storage device connected to a USB port. I've refreshed, powered down, powered up -- nothing.

I have the jumper set on the hard drive for a master, and when I partitioned and formatted, I'm sure it took a boot sector. Maybe I should take the jumper and try cable select? slave?

Dang, it looked so simple and sounded so smart when I got it ...

 

Forgot to mention the obvious:

The external case did come with an install disk. However, when I run the CD, it tells me that the drivers in the setup program are for Win98 only and that since I am not running Win98, the setup program is aborted.

I'm stumped. Ready to return the case to the manufacturer.

How do those 200 gig external backup drives work anyway? There's gotta be a trick.

If I ever figure it out, I'll post back.

 

Saga continued:

Tech support communication with HDD mfr, Seagate, finally yielded this answer: They only support their hard drives with an IDE channel to the motherboard. Otherwise, they defer to the external-enclosure manufacturer.

No useable answer there, looks like an "unauthorized" or "unsupported" use of their hard drive to me. translate: you're on your own, bud.

Spoke with the retailer of the external enclosure, they said the HDD needs to be formatted FAT, that NTFS would not work. They recommended formatting FAT32 on a bunch of partitions on the 120 gig drive -- they were unable to answer the question of whether XP would recognize FAT32 with a disk overlay through a USB2 interface. So I tried it.

I put a disk/bios overlay on the 120 gigs, and formatted FAT32. I lost 9 gigs of memory on that, but I do have 111 gigs of FAT32 on one partition. The drive is still not recognized by XP.

However, at this point I can't test whether we have a format problem because I think we have an electrical malfunction with the external case which is not being recognized under any circumstances by XP -- so this quest is termporarily interrupted while I deal with an RMA on the external case.

When I get a replacement case, we'll see if XP can recognize and read/write to the hard drive through the overlay and through the USB2 channel. If not, I'll try a FAT16 format with an overlay. if that doesn't work, then I guess I'll have to create 25 partitions of FAT32 without an overlay. I will also be testing on a 98 machine (if we get that far) to see how 98 does reading/writing through USB interface. Shall post back then.

TAFN - maureen

 

i meant the opposite of how my setup is (see screenshot), My disks are setup the way i am recommending you do it.

I wouldnt overlay if at all possible. But thats just my opinion. I'd cut it into a BASIC disc, 32G FAT32 volume and make the rest NTFS.

 

Hi Joe.

You mean you can format partitions as large as 32gigs with FAT32?

I never got an answer from anyone on how big a partition you can create with FAT32 on it -- Don't know if the limitations are a function of the bios or the FAT itself. I thought the max was around 8 gigs.

The retailer told me that NTFS on the disk would not be recognized as a mass storage device through a USB2 connection. Since I have no other information, I went with what he told me, and put FAT32 back on a single partition by way of an overlay. When I go into disk management like your screen shot, the disk doesn't even show up, so I can't play wth a dynamic or basic until I get a replacement case which works.

I see on your screenshot that you have FAT32 on two 32-gig partitions. That's encouraging to me; the only reason I put an overlay on the drive is because I didn't want to have 25 partitions of 8 gigs each.

But at this moment since the external case is now in the mail being returned to the mfr, I don't know yet if Windows will be able to read the disk with with an overlay through USB2. Probably not. But at least now I know I can create a larger partition and put FAT32 on it. The retailer's tech support told me also that I would be able to format the drive through the USB2 connection by way of disk manager.

Good to know. As I said, I'll post back when I've had a chance to experiment with it some more.

 

You mean you can format partitions as large as 32gigs with FAT32? Correctamundo. It doesnt format anything bigger, even though the spec can support larger.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/...oc/en/choosing_between_NTFS_FAT_and_FAT32.asp
In Windows XP, you can format a FAT32 volume up to 32 GB only.

I'm looking forward to your review matrix of what you were able to do. To the best of my knowladge, XP will mount anything, its just a matter of how you have things configured. I suspect you created a whopper partition >32G, and when you went to format it, XP said NTFS or nothing because of the 32G limit on formatting. If you had formatted it in a 98 machine or something, it would mount it.

 

Maureen,

I have an external HS (Crossfire, made by Smartdisk) of 120Gigs (USB2) and
when i got it the whole thing was in FAT32 format as 1 partition. My
PC HD's are all NTFS and any conversion (from NTFS to FAT32 and back) is
done by XP when reading/writing to the external with no problems.

I have since then converted the format to NTFS for the external, just seems
better, and broken it into partitions. So, when i go somewhere, i just dump
everything i need to the external and go.

Now i get hazy - isnt there something about large block addressing (LBA) that
must be there for FAT32? I know i have had partitions larger than 32 Gig on
internal HD's while running WinME.

Interesting to see what you come up with.....
savagcl

 

Hey, Good morning, Joe and Savagcl.

Interesting, Joe, the MS WINXP site you linked to says this about FAT32:

Volumes from 512 MB to 2 TB.
In Windows XP, you can format a FAT32 volume up to 32 GB only.
Does not support domains.
Maximum file size is 4 GB.​

this explains why your drive has 32gig-size partitions. It also suggests that savagcl's external hard drive may have had a disk/bios overlay on it, because it had a single 120-gig partition wth FAT32 on it, not several 32-gig partitions.

It would have been simple to format the entire drive as NTFS -- my problem is that I intend to plug this external drive up to Win 98 machines which cannot read or write to NTFS. This is why I wanted to put both FAT32 and NTFS in two separate partitions on my drive.

Savgcl, it's interesting that you were successful in formatting to NTFS and it still works on your XP machine through the USB2 connect. That answers a question for me, my original idea of 2 differently-formatted partitions should work then.

My also-hazy memory is that the limitations on the partition size depended on the bios and OS. If you're as old as I am, you'll remember that initially, Win95 could only recognize up to 2 gig partitions; then as 98 and FAT32 came out, if people still found a 2 gig limit, it was because of the bios limitations -- the next generation of bioses could recognize up to 8 gig, I think. After that, the bioses' recognizition went up exponentially.

It's also kind of strange, isn't it, that this great idea of using IDE externally for massive storage has to rely on retro technology? I suspect it's due to the limitations of USB.

Anyway, we'll get a lot of questions answered when my replacement case comes back. Thanks for bouncing it around.

- maureen

 

Maureen,

Glad i was some help anyway.
While i remember those old OS's, i dont remember much about them.
I'm sure i'm older than you - born in 1939.

good luck,
savagcl

 

plodding right along

When I opened the RMA return package, it looked suspiciously like the identical case I had sent in to be replaced. And when I plugged everything back up, it was the identical scenario: electricity live but no led lights, hard drive running but no recognition by XP when it was plugged in to the usb port.

Called the retailer’s tech support again. This time I got someone who knew about this product. He told me to turn off power to the case, take the hard drive out, plug the empty case back up to the computer, turn the case power back on. Immediately the led lights went on! Then he told me that I had to format the hard drive within the machine it was going to be plugged up to, in other words, make the bare hard drive a slave, partition and format like I wanted, then remove it from the computer and put it back into the case. He said to jumper it as master or cable select when it went back into the case.

I partitioned and formatted the 120 gig hard drive as X: 80+ gig NTFS, and Y: 30+ gig FAT32. I jumpered it back to master, and when I plugged it back into the external case and powered up, Windows XP recognized X: and Y:

XP warned me that I had plugged a high-speed USB2 device into a USB 1.0 port. I guess forgot to install the proprietary drivers for my USB2 card when I redid my computer recently -- so I found and installed the drivers for the USB2 card and now I have no error messages when Windows acknowledges the USB mass storage device. Both X: and Y: appear in My Computer when the case is powered up, and I was able to read/write to each.

Then I pulled out a Win98 machine and installed the 98 drivers so it would recognize the external hard drive. When I plugged it up, Win98 did not recognize anything, My Computer was devoid of any new drives. Back to tech support to see if it’s a USB1 problem, or if the FAT32 partition should be the first partition, or if a W98 machine has to be the one to format the FAT32 partition "¦

What boggles me is trying to understand what difference it would make as to which machine did the formatting on the 120 gig IDE, especially since you can buy these things as a complete backup kit -- presumably formatted at factory and ready for the consumer’s computer, whether the consumer is running XP or Win98.

Anybody who is using a "retail" external hard drive storage unit, Did you have to format the external when you got it? or was it basically a plug and play with maybe a driver to install if necessary?

Anybody who is using a retail external hard drive storage unit, Can you plug into different computers and write to it?

So, I’m waiting for a reply from the retailer’s tech support to see if there is a way to make Win98 machines see the FAT32 partition. Shall post back if this can go any further toward resolution. Needless to say, I'm not very pleased with this product's peculiar limitations.

-- maureen

 

At least you're making progress..

The USB2 into a USB1 plug will only hurt you as far as speed, it will be at USB1 speed.
USB2 is backward compatable to USB1, at least all i have seen is.

Have you tried formatting the fat 32 on the Win98 system then format the NTFS
on the XP system?
XP will handle both formats but i dont think 98 will.......(?).
If you put the FAT32 as the first partition, it seems resonable that 98 would
"see" it first and act correctly by ignoring the remainder (NTFS). Whereas, XP
should see both partitions.

anyone have ideas?
savagcl

 

Hi all,
Sorry to hijack your post, that I have been following with interest, as I have been in the process of setting up a external HD for a system backup. I run XP Pro on NTFS but was not sure on how to Format the drive Fat 32 or NTFS, but now this question is solved.
I wonder if any of you have received error messages Delayed write error, I do get them even when not writing to the drive.
I had put out a post here, with a reply to a MS page, but I still have the problems.
any further advise would be appreciated.
hawk22

 

Sorry it took so long to report back, was jumped by a number of other priorities. The final report here is long, but hopefully the details will help someone else who is struggling with this although I don't think this will help Hawk's problem.

Basically, I was trying to create an external hard drive with two different partitions, one for Win98 and one for WinXP machines to independently read and write to. With some tweaking, the Win98 "My Computer" finally recognized the two partitions, but could not read either of them "“ even the FAT32. When I accepted Win98's offer to reformat the large NTFS partition, 98 could then read and write to the partition. But 98 combined the two partitions and supposedly reformatted the 111 gigs to FAT32 in less than 30 seconds; then it warned me to perform a scandisk.

The XP machine is able to read and write to the single FAT32 partition. A single FAT32 partition would solve my original purpose, however I am very distrustful that Win 98 could have validly formatted the full drive to FAT32 in a few seconds. XP will not do a full-drive reformat except in NTFS. Without FAT32, 98 is shut out of the game. (I don’t want a bunch of small FAT partitions, thanks anyway)

So even though it is readable by 98 and XP, I’m left with a drive whose formatting is highly suspect "“ and I don’t want to be compromised when I try to retrieve items from a large backup. The retailer is going to accept the external case back and give me a refund since I couldn’t accomplish what I wanted to accomplish.

There is a laborious workaround however. This whole thing started because I wanted to be able to back up both XP and 98 machines to this one external drive before reformatting anyone's hard drive for a clean OS install. Since my working computer is XP, I needed to be able to work with both NTFS and FAT32 drives. The workaround is that you can put any hard drive, FAT32 or NTFS, into the external case and plug it up to an XP computer to copy off files/folders that you know you want. Once XP burns them to a CD, they will be readable, and thus restorable, by a 98 machine (don’t forget to remove the "read only" file attributes that 98 leaves on copied CD files). Essentially, it’s the same as setting up a slave drive and copying off the critical docs. Once the files are copied off safely, the hard drive is ready to go back into its 98 machine and get reformatted for a clean OS install.

For the curious, here is how 98 treated the external drive:

Windows 98 machine: after installing the driver for the external USB hard drive, and with the external plugged into a usb port, Device Manager showed no conflicts. Under "disk drives" in Dev Mgr, the generic IDE and the generic floppy were showing ALONG WITH THE 120 GIG HD. No conflicts anywhere in Device Manager, but the drive with its partitions was still not showing in "My Computerâ€. Back in Device Manager, I highlighted the 120 gig drive, went into the properties. Under tab "General," it said the device is working properly. Under tab "Settings," "disconnect" was checked. I unchecked it, checked "removable," then I identified the removable devices with start letter X: and ending letter Y: (there were two other default-checked items, I don't know what they are: "sync data transfer," and "Int 13 unit" -- left them alone). Under tab "Drivers" it said "drivers are not required or loaded for this device." Clicked okay, rebooted, and there were X: and Y:, showing as removable disks in My Computer.

When I double clicked on X: to open it up, I got an error message: Not accessible, device not ready. Not surprising, since X: was NTFS. Then I double clicked on Y: and I got the same message, Not accessible, device not ready. Y: was already formatted in FAT32, this shouldn’t be happening. So I decided to see if I could reformat Y: with the Windows 98 machine to make it a "Win98" FAT32. When I right clicked and tried a full format for the Y: drive, which was approximately 30 gigs, I got this error message: "Windows could not finish formatting because your computer does not have enough available memory. Quit other running programs and try formatting again." I tried a "quick" format (erase), same message. I closed all programs and tried again. Same error message. Mind you, this wasn't about formatting, I was simply trying to get the Win98 machine to read/write to the FAT32 partition which was a legitimate partition for Win98.

Went back into device manager and then into properties for the disk. unchecked everything in various combinations to see what would happen. Finally, with only "removable disk" checked, My Computer showed X: and Y: present. I double clicked on X, Win98 said it was not formatted, did I want to format it? I said okay, let's see what it does. Windows 98 reformatted X: (the 80+ gig partition) in a matter of seconds. When it finished it suggested that I run scandisk on the drive. I tried writing to the partition and reading what I had written. It worked fine. I checked properties for X: in My Computer, it was 111 gigs of FAT32. I lost the 30 gig partition, the "reformat" supposedly applied FAT32 to the entire drive in one partition. (impossible to format that many gigs in FAT32 without partitions).

Windows XP Machine: I moved the disk back to my XP computer. It read the drive as a single partition of 111 gigs, FAT32. XP was able to read what the 98 machine wrote on the drive. XP is not able to reformat the entire drive in FAT32 for use by 98 machines as well.

maureen