maxtor hard drive

[RDI]

i have an external maxtor 80 gig hard drive, partitioned into two sections,
one is fat 32 the other ntfs, i want to repartition to one solid section of
fat 32.

can i just reformat (i know that data goes away), or does something else
have to be done. best way for this to be done?

rdi

 

[David B.]

All formatting will do is erase the data on the partitions, not alter the partitions. You need to use disk manager to repartition
the drive.

 

[LVTravel]

Except that he won't have access to an external (probably USB) hard drive in
DOS.

RDI, go to the Disk Manager in Device Manager. Find your drive and right
click on it. Choose Delete partition. Answer the messages that appear.

After the delete of the partition, you can then recreate a partition and
format as FAT 32. I have heard of problems with XP only formatting a
partition of up to 32 GB maximum with FAT 32. (I haven't tried it so I am
not sure if this is true.) If this happens to you, find a machine that has
Windows 98 or ME and insert the drive, let the machine set up the USB
connection. Run Fdisk in a DOS box with that machine if necessary and then
format to full capacity with Format command.

Good luck.

 

[Randall Arnold]

If you intend to manage partitions, I highly recommend investing in
Partition Magic or similar on-the-fly partitioning tool. You'll be glad you
did.

Randall Arnold

 

[Plato]

All formatting will do is erase the data on the partitions, not alter the partitions.

Formatting doesn't erase data. It just lets you and the pc think it has

 

[Alex Nichol]

i have an external maxtor 80 gig hard drive, partitioned into two sections,
one is fat 32 the other ntfs, i want to repartition to one solid sectionof
fat 32.

can i just reformat (i know that data goes away), or does something else
have to be done. best way for this to be done?

XP will not make or format a FAT 32 partition bigger than 32GB, and if
you want an 80GB drive as a single partition I would make it NTFS anyway
in the absence of special considerations. To do that Control Panel -
Admin Tools - Computer Management, select Disk Management and look lower
right for the graphic of the drive. R-click the present partitions,
take Delete, then r-click the resulting Unallocated space and create one