Partitioning/File system of External Drive

[MattW]

I have a 1TB External drive that I use for backups etc.

There is currently about 350Gb of stuff on it.

However, have just come across an annoying issue where by it is formatted in FAT32 and hence can only take up to 4Gb single file size - and I want to put a file that is about 6Gb on there - drive image.

So, the only thing I could think of was to partition it, and then make a partition NTFS and hence remove the file limit issue.

Anyone know if this would work - and what software would I be best to use to do it. I think I used to have a copy of Partition Magic many moons ago, but no idea where that went!

 

[Darren85]

Yeah this would work no problem.. Do you Windows and is it XP, Vista or 7?

 

[MattW]

Vista on my main machine.

Although if 7 can do something funky with it, then my laptop is running that, so could fire that up and do it on there.

 

[Darren85]

Don't really have much experience with 7, but Vista is all good.. Try this.. it should work!

Click Start> Right Click On 'Computer'> Click 'Manage' on the drop down menu.. A screen will appear called 'Computer Management'.. Double click on 'Storage' on the centre pane and once again double click on 'Disk Management' This will load up all the Drives on your PC and should show your External Hard Drive.. Right Click on your External Drive and Click 'Shrink Volume'.. It should pop up saying 'Querying Volume....' after that another screen which asks you to enter the details of what size you want.. Depending on what size your after lets say 10GB enter 10240 (MB) and hit 'Shrink' this should take a few min's or quicker... After that has finished it will go back to the screen which shows you all your drives once again.. now on the lower pane scroll down to your external drive and it will show you a partition at the end of the drive (this is shown iirc as a square with black strips saying unformatted space) Right click on this box and click format.. and to which you choose Format to NTFS.. Let it do its business and after that you should have circa 10GB NTFS parition on this drive.... and breath lol.. I think I mentioned everything! if I missed something hit me back and I will reply asap!

 

[MattW]

OK, i'm with you up to "shrink volume" as that option is greyed out........

Edit: looking in the help file, seems shrinking isn't an option unless the volume is already NTFS!!

 

[Darren85]

Greyed out.. Hmm.. Now I'm lost.. I assume your the only user on your PC with Admin Rights?

 

[The Ironist]

Acronis worked perfectly for me. Got good reviews also.

 

[MattW]

Darren - yeah, admin rights etc all no problem. Looks like it is an issue as I said above, can't be done with FAT32 drives, which is a bit of a bugger! Need to find out if this is a Windows limitation (i.e can partition magic/Acronis do it) or if it is universal for FAT32.

 

[Darren85]

Would it be possible if you was to copy all of our work from your external drive back onto your pc and then reformat the external HDD into NTSF using the instructions I outlined above and put everything back onto it?

Partition Magic could also be your second best bet if nothing else works.. Never used that much but I read its a good little app to have

 

[MattW]

Yeah looks like I may have to go that route. In fairness, most of the stuff has only recently been copied off of my main machine, so not the end of the world.

 

[JackoR26]

The options are greyed out because you have to convert to a dynamic disk to be able to use them, wouldn't recommend that though

You don't have to format to convert to NTFS and it doesn't wipe out the existing files

The command is convert drive_letter: /fs:ntfs

 

[Darren85]

TBH its always stated that if you are going to partition a HDD its always worth while backing it up as it can cause all your previous data to get damaged.. I found this out the hard way, but fortunately I had a back up.. I would recommend copy it all back onto your PC and reformatting your HDD, better safe then sorry eh

 

[MattW]

hmm, if i can convert without losing anything, that would be very good. Just cos it would make it a whole load easier!

Jacko, tried that from command window and got the following: Accesses denied as you do not have sufficient privileges. you have to invoke this utility in elevated mode.

Can't say i've ever heard of an "elevated mode", any ideas.

Thanks for the help so far..

 

[Darren85]

Its the same again with Administration Access... Try again typing in the command line as above but this time instead of hitting 'Enter' press 'Ctrl+Shift+Enter'

 

[JackoR26]

On the start menu search bar enter cmd, when it shows the application right click it and choose run as administrator

 

[MattW]

Yup, figured it out. I was just starting comand prompt using "cmd" from run, rather than going right through start menu.

It's in progress now, hopefully all going nicely!

Cheers

 

[Darren85]

Good stuff mate.. Hope it all goes well! Tbh I don't even know why I didn't think to use the cmd method! :banghead: Fail on my part haha

 

[JackoR26]

Nice one mate, glad you got it sorted

 

[MattW]

Looks all good. thanks.