External Hard Drive FAT32

Author	Post
Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00	Posted - Jan 13 2008 : 12:00AM I have a new Western Digital 500GB external hard drive that I'm using with my PC that's running Vista. This drive is solely for backups. The file system of this drive is FAT32. Both of my internal drives are using NTFS. Is there any reason why I shouldn't convert the external hard drive to NTFS? [Link]
BigBobxxx Senior Member 2681 Posts 5/04	Posted - Jan 13 2008 : 12:51AM Format it in NTFS click on #15 Edited by - BigBobxxx on 1/13/2008 12:57:31 AM [Link]
Roger Herraw Member 415 Posts 2/06	Posted - Jan 13 2008 : 6:29AM is it absolutely necessary to format it to NTFS, or would it run fine if you left it as FAT32? [Link]
Drew Black broken crankshaft 8009 Posts 9/99	Posted - Jan 13 2008 : 8:20AM NTFS supports a better permissions system than FAT32. Most security experts recommend only running NTFS on Windows systems for this reason. [Link]
Roger Herraw Member 415 Posts 2/06	Posted - Jan 13 2008 : 11:14AM thanks! [Link]

illmatic Member 194 Posts 9/06	Posted - Jan 13 2008 : 11:21AM The only reason I've ever used FAT32 was if I wanted to have write access to a Windows shared drive from a Unix based OS. But now that NTFS is write supported in many Linux distros, there is absolutely no reason to format any disk as FAT32. [Link]
Roger Herraw Member 415 Posts 2/06	Posted - Jan 13 2008 : 1:13PM like Bill, I have a WD external ( a MyBook 160 gb bought about 2 years ago that I actually haven't used yet) also like Bill, I plan to use it only for backups, so to clarify, it comes preformatted as FAT32, if left as FAT32, it would still function perfectly, correct? [Link]
cubesnake Senior Member 3858 Posts 10/02	Posted - Jan 13 2008 : 3:29PM Hi, I can only advise people who want to use a huge harddrive for backup purposes to use two !! You may laugh now but once you lost as much gigabytes as i did you know what i´m talking about. Somehow i feel the quallity of harddrives didn´t become better. Back in the <=80G times i almost never had any problems with total loss of data Nowadays it´s more than a pain in the ass Cube [Link]
Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00	Posted - Jan 13 2008 : 3:35PM Roger Herraw wrote: like Bill, I have a WD external ( a MyBook 160 gb bought about 2 years ago that I actually haven't used yet) also like Bill, I plan to use it only for backups, so to clarify, it comes preformatted as FAT32, if left as FAT32, it would still function perfectly, correct? Click to expand Correct. It comes preformatted as FAT32. It's not necessary to reformat the drive in order to change the file structure to NTFS. At a command prompt, you just need to enter *convert drive letter: /fs:ntfs*. For my 500GB drive, it only took a few minutes to complete the process. If, for any reason, you want to convert back to FAT32, you will need to reformat the drive. [Link]
Cumwhipper Senior Member 4050 Posts 3/04	Posted - Jan 13 2008 : 3:39PM A related question. I bought a 250 Gb external drive and formatted it as NTFS, but when I looked in "My Computer" it showed as 88 Gb. Can anyone tell me why? It's functioning perfectly, and I'm glad I purchased it, but I'm really puzzled about the 250 vs. 88 business. Thanks [Link]
BigBobxxx Senior Member 2681 Posts 5/04	Posted - Jan 13 2008 : 3:40PM And, another thing... I NEVER shut-off an external drive anymore without first using the "remove hardware" utility first (located in the Task Bar, lower right-hand of screen). On larger drives, Windows sometimes is doing "whatever-the-fuck" with the drive (long after you've done anything with it), and turning the drive off will result in an error (corrupted directory?) that renders the files useless Often, Windows will no longer even see the drive after this has occurred. As long as I mentioned this, does anyone know of software that might allow you to restore the drive so you don't lose the files forever? [Link]
BigBobxxx Senior Member 2681 Posts 5/04	Posted - Jan 13 2008 : 3:43PM Cumwhipper wrote: A related question. I bought a 250 Gb external drive and formatted it as NTFS, but when I looked in "My Computer" it showed as 88 Gb. Can anyone tell me why? It's functioning perfectly, and I'm glad I purchased it, but I'm really puzzled about the 250 vs. 88 business. Thanks Click to expand read about the 137 GB barrier in this thread If it's a WD drive, my links in that thread will solve it for you. [Link]
Cumwhipper Senior Member 4050 Posts 3/04	Posted - Jan 13 2008 : 3:48PM Thanks Bob! I seem to be getting a LOT more than 88 Gig on the drive (might just be my imagination), but for future drives, I'll definitely take your suggestions. [Link]
Roger Herraw Member 415 Posts 2/06	Posted - Jan 13 2008 : 6:20PM thanks Bill [Link]
RandomPrecision Senior Member Enjoy! 8175 Posts 3/06	Posted - Jan 14 2008 : 3:12AM BigBobxxx wrote: And, another thing... I NEVER shut-off an external drive anymore without first using the "remove hardware" utility first (located in the Task Bar, lower right-hand of screen). On larger drives, Windows sometimes is doing "whatever-the-fuck" with the drive (long after you've done anything with it), and turning the drive off will result in an error (corrupted directory?) that renders the files useless Often, Windows will no longer even see the drive after this has occurred. As long as I mentioned this, does anyone know of software that might allow you to restore the drive so you don't lose the files forever? Click to expand There is a possible exception to this rule. Keep in mind, however, that I'm only speaking from my personal experience with this drive and my computer running Vista Home Premium. I have a WD My Book 250 gig drive and have always been able to turn it off whenever (Although I generally don't if I hear that it's accessing) with no problems. Every now and then, when I turn it on, Windows will tell me that it needs to check the file system to make sure nothing is corrupted but nothing ever is. This does take some time but since it isn't my primary drive, I can just let it do it's thing. I turn it off when it isn't in use just to save wear and tear int he mechanism. Almost every hard drive I've ever had has developed buzzing and rattling noises after a while. I've never had one crash. They're just noisy and it's irritating so I try and save as much wear as I can. They're cheaper than they used to be but I don't like dropping $100 on a new drive just because I'm paranoid about my other ones dying. I also have a Seagate in an external enclosure that I bought. It just has a manual switch on the back. I turn it off without doing the safely remove hardware thing. Never had a problem with it. Been using it for a couple of years. This might be more of a problem with XP. I don't know. Edited by - randomprecision on 1/14/2008 3:16:36 AM [Link]

BigBobxxx Senior Member 2681 Posts 5/04	Posted - Jan 14 2008 : 7:46AM I never had a problem either -- until I had the problem twice -- and lost everything on the drive (a 500-GB WD MyBook by the way). Just to be clear, my "remove hardware" comments were only concerned with external drives. My external drives are normally off. I power them up individually as I need to work with them. Once I do, I now go through the "remove hardware" routine everytime I turn them off. The only exception I make is when I power-down the computer. Then, I just turn them off after the computer is off. FWIW, I have had about 6 times when the "remove hardware" utility came back -- unexpectedly I might add -- and told me that a drive was being accessed and could not safely be removed at that time. [Link]
RandomPrecision Senior Member Enjoy! 8175 Posts 3/06	Posted - Jan 14 2008 : 8:21AM Well, fortunately, I don't have anything on any of my drives I'd be devastated if I lost. I wouldn't enjoy it but it wouldn't be the end of the world. Did you try checkdisk when you had problems? I thought I'd lost a bunch of stuff once because the drive showed as blank but after running checkdisk, everything was there. [Link]
Harri Patel Senior Member #SDNY he's all yours. -- Michael Steele 5110 Posts 3/03	Posted - Jan 14 2008 : 4:21PM Related matter: If the "safely remove hardware" icon is missing from the task bar, run this command: rundll32 shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll [Link]
conquistador Deactivated User Hellhamster. 2947 Posts 10/03	Posted - Jan 14 2008 : 4:28PM Thanks harri. Mine disappeared long ago. [Link]
Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00	Posted - Jan 14 2008 : 9:19PM I just found out that, if you're going to use Acronis True Image with an external hard drive, then it doesn't make any sense to convert that hard drive to NTFS. The first step in setting up the Acronis "Secure Zone" is to create a backup/restore partition, which it formats to FAT32. Since my plan all along was to use this drive as a backup drive, I'm now waiting for a 500 GB hard drive to be reformatted back to the way is was before I started this thread. [Link]
BigBobxxx Senior Member 2681 Posts 5/04	Posted - Jan 14 2008 : 11:19PM No soup for you. [Link]
Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00	Posted - Jan 15 2008 : 7:32PM One more question. I have an additional external hard drive that I want to connect to my PC (this one is a raw external drive in an enclosure). My intention is exactly what cubesnake suggested. After my recent problems, I want a second backup drive. When I go into Vista's Disk Management screen, it says that I have to initialize the disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it. Then it asks which partition style I want to use for this disc MBR (Master Boot Record) or GPT (GUID Partition Table). The default appears to be MBR. However, I have no idea which option to choose or why. Which option should I choose and why should I choose it? [Link]
RandomPrecision Senior Member Enjoy! 8175 Posts 3/06	Posted - Jan 15 2008 : 9:20PM Well, this is out of my league, really but I looked it up and it seems to me that you could go either way. It seems that GPT is a newer standard but from what I understand, it still incorporates MBR. So, basically, I don't think you can do it wrong. I also ran across a page that tells you how to convert GPT to MBR if you want to change it Here [Link]
willywilly Member Activated Member 662 Posts 2/05	Posted - Jan 16 2008 : 3:36PM BigBobxxx wrote: I never had a problem either -- until I had the problem twice -- and lost everything on the drive (a 500-GB WD MyBook by the way). Just to be clear, my "remove hardware" comments were only concerned with external drives. ... Click to expand I've read exactly what you've said, many times. That unplugging without first telling Windows can result in loss of all data on the external drive. But I seem to also remember reading somewhere that you can adjust a caching function. Can't remember the details, so I can't tell you where to look. Shouldn't be all that hard to find. Anyway, the idea is that if Windows is told not to "hold data and write to the drive when you're not so busy", but to "drop what you are doing and write it right now", then your chances of losing data due to forgetfully unplugging are minimized. You'd have to pull the plug right while it is writing. Disadvantage is that this method might slow down other things going on with your computer. Ever read this? ... experimented with it? [Link]
RandomPrecision Senior Member Enjoy! 8175 Posts 3/06	Posted - Jan 16 2008 : 7:33PM willywilly wrote: Ever read this? ... experimented with it? Click to expand I actually might have. It kind of sounds familiar. Problem is I'm an "in the moment" guy. If I have a problem, I figure it out, fix it and forget it. So I may have set a billion Windows settings that I don't even know are set at some point. I haven't reinstalled Windows for quite a while now. And when I do that, the next time I have to do it is always like learning to walk again. I have to go and look up all that shit I didn't bother to commit to long term memory. [Link]

cubesnake Senior Member 3858 Posts 10/02	Posted - Jan 25 2008 : 12:19AM Hi, willywilly wrote: I've read exactly what you've said, many times. That unplugging without first telling Windows can result in loss of all data on the external drive. But I seem to also remember reading somewhere that you can adjust a caching function. Can't remember the details, so I can't tell you where to look. Shouldn't be all that hard to find. ... Click to expand Since i don´t have an english OS i cant tell you exactly how to get there but you can click on that c:\WINDOWS\system32\diskmgmt.msc . It will open the right programm . On the left side you see your drives. Do a right-click on the drive you want to remove without telling windows first. A new window opens with 4 tabs. The 2nd on from leftside should be the one where you can change this. Not sure if it applies to XP home and profesional or just to profesional Cube Edited by - cubesnake on 1/25/2008 12:23:56 AM [Link]
BigBobxxx Senior Member 2681 Posts 5/04	Posted - Jan 25 2008 : 7:43AM Yes, I've tried the caching variations (after the very first time I lost the data on an external hard drive). I have been fucked by both variations! Hence, my "safely remove hardware" advice. The "safely remove hardware" process is so easy, so quick and so painless, that I can't think of a single reason to find some way to avoid doing it And, as I indicated, I believe it has saved me from disaster on about 6 occasions. FWIW, I have had about 6 times when the "remove hardware" utility came back -- unexpectedly I might add -- and told me that a drive was being accessed and could not safely be removed at that time. Click to expand [Link]
willywilly Member Activated Member 662 Posts 2/05	Posted - Jan 25 2008 : 12:42PM BigBobxxx wrote: ... I have been fucked by both variations! Click to expand c'mon... tell us how you really feel. [:p)] . Hence, my "safely remove hardware" advice. Click to expand Seriously, thanks for sharing your experience. I'm not glad it happened to you, but I'm glad you mentioned it. That eliminates any fence sitting on the idea that I posted about. . The "safely remove hardware" process is so easy, so quick and so painless, that I can't think of a single reason to find some way to avoid doing it Click to expand I don't think the idea is to avoid it, but to insure against forgetting it. Edited by - willywilly on 1/25/2008 12:43:44 PM [Link]