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| Thread ID: 92864 | 2008-08-26 06:19:00 | External SATA HDD GPARTED Partition | GeneralKanos (13592) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 700465 | 2008-08-26 06:19:00 | Hey guys, I've been using an external notebook S-ATA HDD for a lil while now. I've put my movies, music etc on it and brought it to tec to share it around. However I went to plug it into someone's laptop and it wouldn't detect it. After trying it on a few peoples laptops (both XP and Vista) I tried it on an Ubuntu laptop and found it had somehow made a small partition (gparted protected or something like that) in front of another partition (NTFS) which has all the data on it. My mate somehow managed to do a temp fix by making the partition ( the one in front) an unallocated partition to windows would just jump the the next partition ( the one with the data on it). However it has broken again and I'm wondering why it is creating this partition and how do I stop it? Danke |
GeneralKanos (13592) | ||
| 700466 | 2008-08-26 09:43:00 | Sounds a bit odd to me 1. That it gets there automatically. 2. That this stops the disk from being detected! If you have no data on the partition use any non-destructive tool (i.e. one that can resize) to get rid of it then resize the original partition. QTParted, Gparted, Partition Magic, or the Vista Disk Management Tool (not XP) will do this. |
johnd (85) | ||
| 700467 | 2008-08-26 10:46:00 | I looked in gparted and tried to move and delete the partition but I couldn't. I had to end up reformatting it. Ill try and work out exactly whose laptop is making it do it to try and narrow down the possible explanations. |
GeneralKanos (13592) | ||
| 700468 | 2008-08-26 11:26:00 | Interesting! A little while ago i tried to install Ubuntu on my PC & the same thing happened. Wrecked my XP. Could not see the drive. ended up making a new partition with Gparted and reinstalling XP. | mzee (3324) | ||
| 700469 | 2008-08-27 04:39:00 | Well I totally reformatted the external. Made sure I had filled it completely but after i plugged it into my ubuntu'd eeepc and looked in partition editor, there was a 1mb unallocated partition in front of it. So I thought maybe its a vista thing ( im formatting it in vista) so I formatted the drive on my ubuntu eeepc and now although there is no unallocated partition on it anymore, vista canot see it ( in my computer) and disc management sees it as a 2mb drive with no partition. |
GeneralKanos (13592) | ||
| 700470 | 2008-08-27 10:04:00 | I have read your post several times - I am not 100% sure of what you are saying! A question - when you were in Ubuntu, what file system did you use to format the partition? In my experience small partitions that appear when you seemingly did not ask for them are best left alone. |
johnd (85) | ||
| 700471 | 2008-08-27 12:26:00 | I used gparted to make an NTFS partition (I also tried making a FAT32 partition but that didnt work either). The problem with windows is that it only loads the first partition on removable storage and so it tries to load the unallocated partition (which is somehow in front of the main NTFS partition) which of course it cannot do and so does not see the drive. For some reason, it seems, that vista cannot make a partition that fills the entire drive, there is always a few mb unallocated infront of it and when its plugged into a linux machine, linux puts a partition there, meaning the next time its plugged into a windows machine, it cannot see it. |
GeneralKanos (13592) | ||
| 700472 | 2008-08-28 07:06:00 | Just to add some fuel to the discussion - from Microsoft kb931760 When you use the Windows Vista or Windows PE 2.0 partition procedure to create a partition, the partition border is constructed based on the registry setting on the system. However, when you use the Windows XP partition procedure to create a partition, the partition border is aligned according to the cylinder boundary. When you create a partition, free space that is followed by the first partition is created at the beginning of the disk. The size of the free space is determined based on how the partition border is constructed. Therefore, the size may vary, depending on how the partition is created. When you create a partition by using the Windows XP procedure, this free space is equal to one cylinder. However, when you create a partition by using the Windows Vista or Windows PE 2.0 procedure, the free space varies, depending on the registry setting. |
rumpty (2863) | ||
| 700473 | 2008-08-28 11:36:00 | Ah yes. That sounds right. Ubuntu must be seeing the space in front of the partition and putting a partition there. So is there a way (perhaps a program) to make a partition that fills the entire drive? As I have said, I tried in Ubuntu but then Vista cant see it. |
GeneralKanos (13592) | ||
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