I am attempting to backup up files on my old computer to a external hard
drive (NTFS format) through a USB 1.1 port using the XP backup function.
Twice, I've had the backup freeze on me, so I was going to do the backup in
smaller pieces, but I noticed that the disk space used by the failed backups
didn't reappear after I deleted them (same problem on both my old and new
computers). I have other data on the external hard drive, so how can I open
the space on the hard drive without doing a reformat? Thanks for all your
help.

If the externel drive is listed in device mgr,R.click on it,select
uninstall,close
out,shutdown pc.Move the usb connection to other slot for hd,start pc.In xp,
go to run,type:diskmgmt.msc L.click on the drive,actions,all,set to "make
active"
close out msc.Also,for backup,run the file transfer wizard from xp cd,set
what
files,folders,settings for it to save,save to new folder you created,once
its thru,
move to cd or hd.

"lorainj" wrote:

> I am attempting to backup up files on my old computer to a external hard
> drive (NTFS format) through a USB 1.1 port using the XP backup function.
> Twice, I've had the backup freeze on me, so I was going to do the backup in
> smaller pieces, but I noticed that the disk space used by the failed backups
> didn't reappear after I deleted them (same problem on both my old and new
> computers). I have other data on the external hard drive, so how can I open
> the space on the hard drive without doing a reformat? Thanks for all your
> help.

Thank you for replying so fast. I did what you said, but it didn't work.
The drive is still not showing all the available open space. Any other
suggestions would be appreciated.

"Andrew E." wrote:

> If the externel drive is listed in device mgr,R.click on it,select
> uninstall,close
> out,shutdown pc.Move the usb connection to other slot for hd,start pc.In xp,
> go to run,type:diskmgmt.msc L.click on the drive,actions,all,set to "make
> active"
> close out msc.Also,for backup,run the file transfer wizard from xp cd,set
> what
> files,folders,settings for it to save,save to new folder you created,once
> its thru,
> move to cd or hd.
>
> "lorainj" wrote:
>
> > I am attempting to backup up files on my old computer to a external hard
> > drive (NTFS format) through a USB 1.1 port using the XP backup function.
> > Twice, I've had the backup freeze on me, so I was going to do the backup in
> > smaller pieces, but I noticed that the disk space used by the failed backups
> > didn't reappear after I deleted them (same problem on both my old and new
> > computers). I have other data on the external hard drive, so how can I open
> > the space on the hard drive without doing a reformat? Thanks for all your
> > help.