sayhi
asked on
How to partition an external USB drive?
Hey all,
I bought a Western Digital 120gb external usb drive for my laptop. It's preformatted in FAT32 and I was reading about using FDISK to partition drives @ http://fdisk.radified.com/ and I noticed that you need to use a floppy to boot from? My laptop doesn't have a floppy drive. Is there a way I can run FDISK on my laptop since I'm not going to partition the laptop's drive, just the external drive? My laptop has Windows XP Professional. I've never done this sort of thing before, so I like guides and step-by-step intructions since I don't want to screw up. =) Thanks in advance for suggestions!
I bought a Western Digital 120gb external usb drive for my laptop. It's preformatted in FAT32 and I was reading about using FDISK to partition drives @ http://fdisk.radified.com/ and I noticed that you need to use a floppy to boot from? My laptop doesn't have a floppy drive. Is there a way I can run FDISK on my laptop since I'm not going to partition the laptop's drive, just the external drive? My laptop has Windows XP Professional. I've never done this sort of thing before, so I like guides and step-by-step intructions since I don't want to screw up. =) Thanks in advance for suggestions!
ASKER
I didn't know XP could partition. I read a bit more on Microsoft's site (http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/troubleshooting/pc/ls/013102.asp) and it said that "Windows XP Professional allows a maximum of 32 GB volume size for FAT32 logical drives". I want to partition my 120gb into 4 sizes -- 8gb, 40gb, 10gb, and lastly 62gb for all my video and music files. Hmm, I don't know what to do, should I re-format to NTFS? But I know FDISK can partition over 32gb... I still need my previous FDISK question answered...
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
ASKER
Okay... back to my orginal question... do I need a floppy drive or not to use FDISK?
You could boot from a CD, dual-boot your hard drive, boot from a bootp server, but YES - for all practical purposes.
If you want large drive support it has to be 98SE.
Doesn't WD supply a formatting utility with the drive?
If you want large drive support it has to be 98SE.
Doesn't WD supply a formatting utility with the drive?
ASKER
>> Doesn't WD supply a formatting utility with the drive?
Nope.
Nope.
HP/Compaq provides an MSDOS or WinXP utility that is not bound by the 32GB FAT32 requirements of Windows XP:
http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqdt/us/download/21284.html
If the link above is stale, search for SoftPaqs SP27214 and SP27608.
http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqdt/us/download/21284.html
If the link above is stale, search for SoftPaqs SP27214 and SP27608.
You should see your drive and it's partitions there