Partitioning External Drive

[Scott]

I have an external Maxtor 250GB hard drive. I use it to back up
drive images with Acronis True Image 8.0 from both my Win98 and
Win XP machines. I have a 160GB NTFS partition and two Win98
FAT32 partitions, plus 22GB of unallocated space. I would have
made the Win98 partitions bigger, but there seems to be a 32GB
limit for FAT32 partitions. I'm using Win XP's Disk Management
tool. So I now have a total of three partitions. When I try
to partition the unallocated space by right-clicking on the
graphical display of the unallocated space, the New Partition
option is greyed out. Is there some reason why I can only put
three partitions on a drive? How can I partition the remaining
22GB?

Thanks!
Scott

 

[Richard Urban]

You really DO NOT have to ask the same question THREE times to get an
answer.

You have to use a 3rd party program, such as Partition Magic to get fat32
partitions that are larger than 32 gig.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Scott]

You really DO NOT have to ask the same question THREE times to get an
answer.

You have to use a 3rd party program, such as Partition Magic to get fat32
partitions that are larger than 32 gig.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

I wasn't trying to ask the same question three times. I made a few spelling
mistakes on the first two, so I cancelled the messages immediately. Apparently,
it only cancels them on my computer, not on the server...although I had been
told that if you do it aright away, it would work. Sorry about that.

Yes, I'm familiar with Partition Magic.

The other part of my question is: Why am I limited to only three partitions on
the 250GB extermal drive...at least when using XP's Disk Management tool?

Thanks!
Scott

 

[Richard Urban]

You can have up to 4 "primary" partitions. You can have 1 primary extended
partition and a number of logical partitions limited by the letters in the
alphabet. It's all about how much you know about the accepted disk
structuring techniques.
--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

You really DO NOT have to ask the same question THREE times to get an
answer.

You have to use a 3rd party program, such as Partition Magic to get
fat32 partitions that are larger than 32 gig.

A clarification here: a third-party (non-Microsoft) program isn't actually
required. What's required is a non-Windows-XP program. FDISK from Windows 98
or Me will work fine.

 

[Scott]

A clarification here: a third-party (non-Microsoft) program isn't actually
required. What's required is a non-Windows-XP program. FDISK from Windows 98
or Me will work fine.

Ken,

I tried that with my Win98 machine. As I recall, with the USB external drive
hooked up, I booted to DOS...but FDISK couldn't see the external drive. Any
suggesstions?

Thanks!
Scott

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Ken,

I tried that with my Win98 machine. As I recall, with the USB
external drive hooked up, I booted to DOS...but FDISK couldn't see
the external drive. Any suggesstions?

Sorry's there's no native USB support from DOS. There are various
third-party USB DOS drivers, but I have no experience with any of these.

 

[Richard Urban]

Not on USB drives.

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Not on USB drives.

Yes, sorry. I missed that he said he was talking about an external drive. He
didn't explicitly say USB, but that's probably what he meant.

 

[Richard Urban]

He Ken,

After reading 5-6 dozen posts it easy to miss a point. I'll never cast the
first stone.

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Edward W. Thompson]

A simple application of 'DUSE' to the WIN98 boot disk will allow USB
external devices to be accessed. A far better solution than purchasing a
WINXP program to overcome limitations of DOS.

Not on USB drives.

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Scott]

Yes, sorry. I missed that he said he was talking about an external drive. He
didn't explicitly say USB, but that's probably what he meant.

Ken,

Yes, I should have mentioend that it's an external USB drive.

Scott

 

[Scott]

A simple application of 'DUSE' to the WIN98 boot disk will allow USB
external devices to be accessed. A far better solution than purchasing a
WINXP program to overcome limitations of DOS.

Not on USB drives.

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

Edward.

Thanks. I'll give DUSE a try. It's great to learn something new every day.

Scott