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katysmith
regular
Reg'd: Mon
Posts: 29
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Goodday experts,
Has anyone here successfully partitioned an external harddrive with XP's Management Console? I don't want to pay for a programme I will probably use just once and wondered if anyone has tried MS's own tools.
I've never attempted anything like this before. The external drive has 360 GB and the shop suggested partitioning it would make handling easier as I have read in other Forums that transfers to a large memory lose on speed and quality as the drive fills up. As my intention is to back up my data, that would rather defeat the purpose.
I would be very interested to hear what experiences you have had.
Advance thanks and cheers.
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putasolutions
regular
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 12173
Loc: Infinity and beyond
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Yes, it's very easy to do, and your shop has, IMHO, given you sound advice regarding partitioning and formatting. (Please don't tell me that it was PC World, or I shall faint  ) You could easily split the drive into two equal partitions of 160Gb
Once the drive has been installed, Click Start | Control Panel | Administrative Services | Computer Management
Click on the section that says Unknown or Not Initialized.
Right click and select Initialize Disk then right click on the right
portion of the next window and select New Partition to start the New
Partition Wizard.
Select Primary Partition and continue with the wizard.
Once you have created your partitions, you can then go ahead and format them
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"Only the stupid don't ask questions."
My piccies
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katysmith
regular
Reg'd: Mon
Posts: 29
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Thanks for the advice, putasolutions, sounds not too difficult. However, it throws up a new problem. I then have to format the partitions??????????? Just give them names, I hope?!?!
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putasolutions
regular
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 12173
Loc: Infinity and beyond
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You'll need to format them. It's actually part of the new partition wizard, as is ginving the partitions names. Alternatively, you just right click the new partition and click Format. You then choose whether you use NTFS or FAT32,
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"Only the stupid don't ask questions."
My piccies
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katysmith
regular
Reg'd: Mon
Posts: 29
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Hi there,
Following on from that, you used to be able to quick-format a diskette many moons ago. That programme option is offered in Explorer when you click on the external hard drive(in my case 'H'); i.e. you can tick quickformat and NTFS - you don't need the Management Console at all. Do you think it would work?
I hope you're still around putasolutions.
Cheers
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putasolutions
regular
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 12173
Loc: Infinity and beyond
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You could do it that way, but you would have just one partition. You would format the WHOLE drive, and if you were to partition it later, you would lose anything saved to it unless you used specialist partioning software. Better to do it first than mess about later.
I like separate partitions to separate different areas, music, films, photos work etc. Also handy if a part of the drive goes belly up, you can still retrieve the majority of your data
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"Only the stupid don't ask questions."
My piccies
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katysmith
regular
Reg'd: Mon
Posts: 29
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Hi there,
I'm back, as you see, with a further problem.
In order to make a partition you have to click on the free space on the drive. There is no free space on an external hard drive. Do I have to delete the current FAT 32 drive and start from scratch?
I hope there's someone out there reading this. I'm hoping to get this job done today so that I can save my data and get my 'puter repaired.
Cheers everyone.
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putasolutions
regular
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 12173
Loc: Infinity and beyond
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Yes, to partition you will have to remove any existing partitions. However, if it is already split as you want it ie 50:50, 60:40 etc then all you have to do is format the existing partitions
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"Only the stupid don't ask questions."
My piccies
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outsider
regular
Reg'd: Wed
Posts: 163
Loc: somewhere in the UK
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Hi
I hope you don’t mind me jumping in here but this post has been a great help to me as I was given a 500GB HD not long ago, and I just plugged it in and formatted it and yes it do’s seem to make your PC work slower, so I did what was suggested in the above post and made a partition (it took me a couple of attempts to work it out) and PC is now running a lot better.
I managed to make a partition off 17.6GB and ended up with one off 448.GB as I could not find away of slitting the second one up, if there is a way of doing this I would appreciate some help, if there is away would I have to remove the stuff I have put onto the first partition
Thanks in advance
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Any help is a blessing in disguise !!
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putasolutions
regular
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 12173
Loc: Infinity and beyond
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You would have to remove it temporarily to your pc's internal hard drive if you don't want to use additional software, but could be moved back later.
Did you use Diskpart to partition the hard drive?
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"Only the stupid don't ask questions."
My piccies
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outsider
regular
Reg'd: Wed
Posts: 163
Loc: somewhere in the UK
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Hi
Thank you for your reply yes i did use diskpart (the one in the computer management system), i just could not get the bigger one to partition again it just went into formatting it self (no doubt i have missed some thing)
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Any help is a blessing in disguise !!
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outsider
regular
Reg'd: Wed
Posts: 163
Loc: somewhere in the UK
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Hi
I came cross this site that shows you how to partition a External hard drive it may be of use to some one else
http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/Format-an-Exte...idZp3286.c0.m17
The only thing i can not find out is how to put the HD back into one disk, as i have put it into split it into two drives, i can delete the drives but not put it into one drive
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Any help is a blessing in disguise !!
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greysts
regular
Reg'd: Thu
Posts: 17744
Loc: Colchester
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You want a piece of software that will 'merge' the two partitions. What did you use to split the partitions in the first place? Does that have a Merge option?
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Do you know that we're all in line for succession to the throne? Really?
Well, if forty-eight million, two hundred thousand, seven hundred and one people died I'd be Queen.
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outsider
regular
Reg'd: Wed
Posts: 163
Loc: somewhere in the UK
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Hi greysts
I used the on board Disk management system (Diskpart) to do the partition i now have two partitions one off 17.6 GB and one off 448.0 GB, i can delete the partitions but can not merge them into one.
The 17.6GB is OK but can not split the other into more the 6mb partitions, i made the mistake of making two primary partitions
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Any help is a blessing in disguise !!
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greysts
regular
Reg'd: Thu
Posts: 17744
Loc: Colchester
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The only thing you can do with the built in XP system is partition disks. It won't give you anything sophisticated like merging them back together again. If you've made two Primary partitions on one disk (which is normally impossible unless you created the second one within an Extended partition) I would be inclined to kill everything you've done so far and start over, but to do that you will need some software. I've just found this which says it free and will do what you want but I've not tried it myself.
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Do you know that we're all in line for succession to the throne? Really?
Well, if forty-eight million, two hundred thousand, seven hundred and one people died I'd be Queen.
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outsider
regular
Reg'd: Wed
Posts: 163
Loc: somewhere in the UK
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Hi Greysts
Thank you for your reply i have had a look at the link you gave me and will have a go at using it some time this week (i need to remove all my photos of the disk first)
Both the petitions that i made are "primary ones"the XP system gave me this option
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Any help is a blessing in disguise !!
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outsider
regular
Reg'd: Wed
Posts: 163
Loc: somewhere in the UK
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Hi Greysts
Finally got what what i was after the link you suggested did not work so i found this one "Easeus" took me a bit to work out but got there in the end.
One question that you may be able to help with if i take the program "Easeus" off my system do the partitions stay or go
Thanks
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Any help is a blessing in disguise !!
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greysts
regular
Reg'd: Thu
Posts: 17744
Loc: Colchester
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Once you done whatever you want with the partitions they will stay and you can get rid of the software that did it.
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Do you know that we're all in line for succession to the throne? Really?
Well, if forty-eight million, two hundred thousand, seven hundred and one people died I'd be Queen.
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