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Thread ID: 69139	2006-05-23 02:59:00	How do I format a blank USB HDD?	Billy T (70)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
457070	2006-05-24 06:07:00	I take it, its plugged into the power as well? And SP4 is installed?	Speedy Gonzales (78)
457071	2006-05-24 06:13:00	Talk about how little effort it takes to transform a simple task into a mammoth problem. Ignoring all the chode. Take the side off the case. Plug it into the IDE cable. Format it. In the event that the efforts so far have written something to the drive that is stalling the procedure then, Unplug all the drives apart from the one that needs formatting. Assign it as master. Boot into DOS Format C.	Metla (12)
457072	2006-05-24 06:19:00	I dont think you can format the usb drive until you have created a partition logical on top of a primary or just a primary ie: bootable. I think the signature part of the equation is windows way of writing a hardware ID to the device not yet integrated to the O/S, and until this happens you wont be able to create a partition to format. I think you also need the 'remote storage' service running.	SolMiester (139)
457073	2006-05-24 06:24:00	And most sites say u cant make external USB hdd's bootable, or as a system disk. So, you'll have to create a system disk and boot from it. Or get one of those disks from bootdisk.com	Speedy Gonzales (78)
457074	2006-05-24 06:39:00	And most sites say u cant make external USB hdd's bootable, or as a system disk. So, you'll have to create a system disk and boot from it. Or get one of those disks from bootdisk.com I dont mean for him to make it bootable, just a primary/logical partition.	SolMiester (139)
457075	2006-05-24 06:43:00	Let the wizard do it's thing - It looks like you have to write a signature to a disk before you can use it.Hmm ... reading what that Signature Wizard wants to do, this doesn't sound like a good idea. It wants to upgrade the standard basic disk to a dynamic volume. Is the 40 gig Seagate known to be working? I see that it hasn't been assigned a drive letter under Disk Management either.	Jen (38)
457076	2006-05-24 06:45:00	I dont mean for him to make it bootable, just a primary/logical partition. I know. Altho, what Metla is saying if u unplug all other drives, how exactly are you going to do anything with the USB hdd? Or boot into DOS? Other than chuck a floppy or USB key in and boot from one of them (with the command to format it). I have heard of people trying to format a USB hdd (without power) as well. This is one reason why it wouldnt format. It wasnt connected to a power point. As soon as they connected it to power, they were able to format it as well.	Speedy Gonzales (78)
457077	2006-05-24 06:49:00	Talk about how little effort it takes to transform a simple task into a mammoth problem. In the event that the efforts so far have written something to the drive that is stalling the procedure............. Yes, well, nothing whatsoever had been written to the drive, and it wasn't recognised as a slave, so crawling around on the floor to do a swap for my C: drive was not an attractive proposition, given the likelihood of failure. However, I have fixed it and it is now in three partitions, formatted FAT32 and recognised in Explorer and all that Jazz. The answer lay in doing the signature thing, and the reason why I had not attempted that before was simply because I had no information to tell me what it was about. SolMiester had it sussed correctly, but unfortunately that came too late to save what was left of my hair. Once this "signature" was applied, another wizard opened up to offer partioning. It would only write one partition, but I guess that's normal, then I had to go back and do the other two. That was interesting because despite my selecting FAT32 in each case, it wrote the largest partion as NTFS so I had to reformat that. Anyway, I was able to do the whole thing over the USB cable, and it will remain one of life's unsolved mysteries as to why it couldn't be recognised and formatted when connected directly to an IDE cable, but that's computing. Thanks to everybody for their input, I got there in the end. Cheers Billy 8-{) :thumbs:	Billy T (70)
457078	2006-05-24 06:51:00	Does the drive show under Disk Management as Basic or Dynamic now?	Jen (38)
457079	2006-05-24 06:53:00	Hmm . . . reading what that Signature Wizard wants to do, this doesn't sound like a good idea . It wants to upgrade the standard basic disk to a dynamic volume . Urk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . maybe I started celebrating too soon . :eek: What is a dynamic volume, and why isn't it a good idea Jen? Edit: From Windows 2000 Secrets I see that a dynamic drive can't be accessed by any other OS but W2K (and no doubt XP) . That shouldn't be a problem because I want to pull files off my W98 box over the network, but I don't need the reverse access . Cheers Billy 8-{)	Billy T (70)
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