Topic: External drives

[daveeb]

Now i don't normally post queries about hard drives   but....

Now that my pc system is at one with nature again i want to resurrect my external usb 1.0 > ide hard drive caddy, so i need a new drive for it.

is it possible to partition and format an external drive from windows xp and if so would the process be slowed down bearing in mind its only usb 1.0.
Also are there any drive size limitations imposed by XP (if i use ntfs).  

Thanks  

[Sandra]

Hi Dave, I have never used an external hard drive so I am not sure how they work as far as partitioning goes but if it shows as a normal hard drive in the Disk Management bit when you connect it then I would have thought you could partition it.
The only limitations that XP has in NTFS is that it will only "see" and allow a drive of 137 gig max to be created/formatted until SP1 is installed on XP, as I found out a few weeks back when two friends were installing a 250 gig drive in a new Shuttle pc and were baffled to see it only giving an option to create partitions totalling 137 gig  
The solution to that problem was to create a partition to install XP on, I think we chose 40 gig in the end and then once XP was installed, install SP1 then it showed the full drive size in Disk Manager and allowed the remaining space to be formatted and allocated  

[joudi]

I have 60 gb + 120 gb internal + an external USB 160 gb drive Dave. XP is able to control them all. I can't give you a confirmed answer of the possibility to partition the external one as I have it one only partition and didn't try to partition it before.

It's possible to format it. And the options on it when you right clic are:

- Open
- Explore
- Mark the partition as actif
- Modify the drive letter
- Format
- Remove the partition
- Properties
- Help

Concerning USB1, it's slow. It takes about 15 minutes (or more to move 700 mb to it. I'm thinking to add a "USB2" or "FireWire" especially for my external drive.

[daveeb]

Oh yes its slow Joudi (but mines quicker than that  ) but i only use it for backup/archive so its not much of a problem.

i do intend to get a usb2 card at some point, when finances permit.

cheers sandra as well  

[joudi]

I know it's too late for this thread. execuse me if I bring it back. But I just wanted to add a little information:

I bought yesterday a new card "USB2/FireWire", and I used it for my external Drive.

Well, I really regret that I didn't do that long time ago.

In fact, the USB1 used to take about 25 minutes to transfer 700 mb of data to and from the external drive. One Gigabyte needed about 40 minutes. Now, by using the fireWire, it takes a little more than one minute for one gigabyte.  

Isn't it worthy?    

That card costed me ?31 only. It has 3 fireWire and 3 USB2.

[daveeb]

Hi Joudi

i bought a usb2 card a few weeks ago, unfortunately it didnt work properly and nearly killed my pc, so i took it back.  i'm back to sloooooooow usb1 but at least it works....glad you're sorted out anyway  

[joudi]

Yes Daveeb, I read about that, and knew about your problem, unfortunately.

In fact, I can't understand why that problem happened with you more than others. As you well know, my knowledge is limitted.

But I just wanted to add that point in case someone thinks one day of it.

Another point is important to mention here, in case you or someone else thinks to use an external HDD.

If we use an external case (box) of a HDD in which we ourselves put the drive in, The jumper of the hard drive of that external hard drive must be set on the position "MASTER", not another.

I don't think this was the cause of your problem. For, if you set it on another position, it simply doesn't work, but it doesn't cause problems to the PC like it happened with you.

Good chance to all...