Formatting a 60gb hard drive fails in Disk Management
This 2.5" portable 60gb HD is connected by USB 2.0.
OS: Windows 2000, SP4
The first time I plugged in the drive, Windows 2000 put a signature on the drive. This is normal and it completed within a few seconds.
I clicked on Disk Management, located the new drive, right clicked and selected create partition. I selected format as FAT32 with a 59gb partition and after a few minutes, the first error appeared as, "Logical Disk Manager - An internal error has occurred. The Logical Disk Manager server may have become unstable. Please close the Disk......"
After this error, I rebooted and proceeded to try again, this time with a NTFS partition and a quick format. The next error to display (after about 2 minutes) was "Logical Disk Manager - The format failed to complete successfully."
Then I decided that this may be the 32gb partition limit that I recall with Windows 2000 from about two years ago. The next step was to remove the partition entirely and start over. No dice! The next error was, "Logical Disk Manager - The server threw an exception." Repeated the process and the next error was, "L.... - the request timed out and could not be completed."
Any thoughts?
My next step is to take this drive to a Windows 98 computer and clean it up.
Thank you!
OS: Windows 2000, SP4
The first time I plugged in the drive, Windows 2000 put a signature on the drive. This is normal and it completed within a few seconds.
I clicked on Disk Management, located the new drive, right clicked and selected create partition. I selected format as FAT32 with a 59gb partition and after a few minutes, the first error appeared as, "Logical Disk Manager - An internal error has occurred. The Logical Disk Manager server may have become unstable. Please close the Disk......"
After this error, I rebooted and proceeded to try again, this time with a NTFS partition and a quick format. The next error to display (after about 2 minutes) was "Logical Disk Manager - The format failed to complete successfully."
Then I decided that this may be the 32gb partition limit that I recall with Windows 2000 from about two years ago. The next step was to remove the partition entirely and start over. No dice! The next error was, "Logical Disk Manager - The server threw an exception." Repeated the process and the next error was, "L.... - the request timed out and could not be completed."
Any thoughts?
My next step is to take this drive to a Windows 98 computer and clean it up.
Thank you!
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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That's a good idea. I'll test this tomorrow when I have to format a 1394 - 140gb hard drive. I don't have a firewire interface for the Win98 system so this will be my only option other than making 5 partitions.
BTW, What the heck do you do when you run out of drive letters? What a silly archaic system these drive LETTERS! MS could learn a thing or two from UNIX.
BTW, What the heck do you do when you run out of drive letters? What a silly archaic system these drive LETTERS! MS could learn a thing or two from UNIX.
I haven't had that problem yet.Do you use all the letters for partitions or also for network drives?
Yup, Microsoft has inentionally disabled Windows 2000's ability to format partitions >32GB as FAT32 because they prefer people to use NTFS (Which is indeed more efficient for large partitions, however I wonder if this has also something to do with the compatibility problems NTFS is having with Linux...).
However, once you have formatted a partition as FAT32, Windows 2000 will have no problem accessing it, no matter what size it is (Up to the maximum size a FAT32 partition can be, which is a few TBs; I can guarantee that as I am working with a 150GB FAT32 partition...)
Which means your only problem is how to initially format the large partition as FAT32. One way is, as said before, to use commercial software, such as PowerQuest PartitionMagic. However, if you cannot afford it, you also do this by booting your PC from a Windows 98 boot disk (You can download an image for free at http://www.bootdisk.com), and use format to do the job.
Have fun :)
However, once you have formatted a partition as FAT32, Windows 2000 will have no problem accessing it, no matter what size it is (Up to the maximum size a FAT32 partition can be, which is a few TBs; I can guarantee that as I am working with a 150GB FAT32 partition...)
Which means your only problem is how to initially format the large partition as FAT32. One way is, as said before, to use commercial software, such as PowerQuest PartitionMagic. However, if you cannot afford it, you also do this by booting your PC from a Windows 98 boot disk (You can download an image for free at http://www.bootdisk.com), and use format to do the job.
Have fun :)
ASKER
Hello Chatable,
Actually, I couldn't even format as NTFS but that may have been a result of trying to format as FAT32 first. Nevertheless, I had to fire up the old Win98 system to fix this problem (I wonder if Partition Magic could have fixed this on the Win2K computer?).
http://www.bootdisk.com - Yes, great site.... I've recommended this site to many people myself. I'm surprized MS hasn't shut them down for distributing copyrited software.
Another great program is WinImage which allows you to make your own custom boot disks (as a one file executable).
Thank you to everyone!
SDC
Actually, I couldn't even format as NTFS but that may have been a result of trying to format as FAT32 first. Nevertheless, I had to fire up the old Win98 system to fix this problem (I wonder if Partition Magic could have fixed this on the Win2K computer?).
http://www.bootdisk.com - Yes, great site.... I've recommended this site to many people myself. I'm surprized MS hasn't shut them down for distributing copyrited software.
Another great program is WinImage which allows you to make your own custom boot disks (as a one file executable).
Thank you to everyone!
SDC
Hmm, that's interesting.
I don't know why you couldn't format the HDD as NTFS. Maybe if you provided the error message. But if you have already overcome the problem then don't bother.
About the bootdisk site - I don't think that Microsoft cares about it. For some reasons it actually helps people do things that cannot be anyhow interpretered as illegal (such as installing Windows on a machine that can't boot from CD...). Anyway, there are enough sites that offer the entire Windows for download so Microsoft have others to deal with first :)
About WinImage, yeah I know about it though I usually use the GPL-based rawread/rawwrite.
I don't know why you couldn't format the HDD as NTFS. Maybe if you provided the error message. But if you have already overcome the problem then don't bother.
About the bootdisk site - I don't think that Microsoft cares about it. For some reasons it actually helps people do things that cannot be anyhow interpretered as illegal (such as installing Windows on a machine that can't boot from CD...). Anyway, there are enough sites that offer the entire Windows for download so Microsoft have others to deal with first :)
About WinImage, yeah I know about it though I usually use the GPL-based rawread/rawwrite.
ASKER
I knew I kept that Windows 98 computer around for a reason!!
So, what the @$^%& up with Windows 2000? It must still have a problem in formatting a drive larger than 32gb. The last time I attempted something like this (~ 1 year ago), Windows 2000 actually popped up a message stating that I desired a large partition greater than 32gb that I should do this on a Windows 9x system!