how to assign a Drive letter to an Ext HDD

you can't reformat it from windows (as of yet) because it is already formatted to HFS which windows doesnt recognise as a valid file system
 
You shouldn't need to put it on a Mac to reformat it. First thing you have to do is destroy what is already on there and create a new partition. When in disk management, what options do you have when you right click the "Disk1" section and what options do you have when you right click the grey bar underneath the "Healthy (system..." bit for the C: drive?
 
PS. for "Partition" read "Volume" on the menus.
 
My first thought ( now that the initial problem is diagnosed) would be - who do I know that owns a Mac?

Ask them to reformat it to FAT32, it's a 30 second job!
 
I've only skim read some of this thread but i did see Samsung S2. Samsung have their own utility program to format these drives. mine came with a Michael Jackson movie on it and I had to use the S2 format utility to get rid of it and make one formatted drive out of it. Disc manager in windows would not let me do it.

Now that Seagate have bought Samsungs hard drive business the download seems to have gone awol but you may be able to find it elsewhere.
 
RobertP said:
I've only skim read some of this thread but i did see Samsung S2. Samsung have their own utility program to format these drives. mine came with a Michael Jackson movie on it and I had to use the S2 format utility to get rid of it and make one formatted drive out of it. Disc manager in windows would not let me do it.

Now that Seagate have bought Samsungs hard drive business the download seems to have gone awol but you may be able to find it elsewhere.
Click to expand...

the drive in question is a Verbatim....the Samsung drive is Johns internal HDD



have to agree that the easiest solution to this is get a mac user to format it
 
antihero said:
have to agree that the easiest solution to this is get a mac user to format it
Click to expand...
You just have to create a partition windows understands before formatting. It is relatively simple.

Not all roads lead to Macland you know ;)
 
The picture in post 1 says samsung S2 portable on the drives list but I guess that must be another drive :)

It is the day after new years night :coat:

btw... verbatim seem to have a hard drive formatting utility on their site too (red icon).
 
A makers utility would take care of that too I'd have thought.
 
RobertP said:
A makers utility would take care of that too I'd have thought.
Click to expand...
It's the responsibility of the OS/filesystem writers to do it (think of someone developing a new filesystem for an OS - surely it isn't the drive manufacturers responsibility to support any layout information required by the new filesystem). It wants a particular layout on the drive to be able to read it, so the OS provides utilities to do this. I'm never sure why manufacturers seem to "add value" by reimplementing something that already exists in the OS. Tehe worst exponents seem to be wifi dongle manufacturers that always add their own "multi-access point" configuration software. Windoze does fine thanks...
 
arad85 said:
The problem isn't FORMATTING, but creating a partition/volume to format in the first place ;)
Click to expand...

I did this on an ext HDD, I'm sure there's something like a simple partition wizard somewhere ?

Once I'd created a partition, I could then format the drive
 
Andy, I take your point about creating Partitions etc, but with all due respect to the OP, they don't appear to be massively PC literate, therefore in the realms of KISS getting it formatted on a Mac is probably the quickest and simplest route. Just because you can do something (ie partition/format in Win), it doesn't meant that you have to do it that way! :)
 
DemiLion said:
Andy, I take your point about creating Partitions etc, but with all due respect to the OP, they don't appear to be massively PC literate, therefore in the realms of KISS getting it formatted on a Mac is probably the quickest and simplest route. Just because you can do something (ie partition/format in Win), it doesn't meant that you have to do it that way! :)
Click to expand...
But it's just the case of creating a volume first. There should be a way of either destroying the current volume (i.e. unrecognised Mac partition) and reinitialising or just initialising. It should be a couple of clicks away....

The only reason a Mac would be simpler is because the knowledge pool isn't very large and someone, somewhere has done it that way. The simplest way would be to figure out what items to click since that doesn't involve doing anything other than mouse clicks.... No sending it anywhere, no 3 day turnaround....
 
arad85 said:
You shouldn't need to put it on a Mac to reformat it. First thing you have to do is destroy what is already on there and create a new partition.

When in disk management, what options do you have when you right click the "Disk1" section

initialise
offline [greyed out]
properties
Help

and what options do you have when you right click the grey bar underneath the "Healthy (system..." bit for the C: drive?
none
Click to expand...



thanks
 
Mikesphotaes said:
There are two seperate parts to the Disk 1 window, did you right click on each part to initialise?

One part has different actions from the other.
Click to expand...

mike...only the LHS comes up with a menu option ...see post above....^^^^^
 
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DemiLion said:
My first thought ( now that the initial problem is diagnosed) would be - who do I know that owns a Mac?

Ask them to reformat it to FAT32, it's a 30 second job!
Click to expand...

:lol::lol::lol:

i've started a thread to see if anyone locally has a mac

the only response so far has to be a helpful suggestion to download software
''Just download the parted magic CD which is free, burn it and boot your PC from it. ''

read the tech sheets and out of my depth............:shake:
 
antihero said:
the drive in question is a Verbatim....the Samsung drive is Johns internal HDD
Click to expand...

.... my external 320GB Samsung is my PRIMARY external Backup for ALL my 'stuff'

i bought the 160GB Verbatim as a secondary just for all my images now that i'm shooting RAW

have to agree that the easiest solution to this is get a mac user to format it

i wont be defeated..................:lol::lol::lol:
 
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mrgas said:
I did this on an ext HDD, I'm sure there's something like a simple partition wizard somewhere ?

Once I'd created a partition, I could then format the drive
Click to expand...

hi

downloaded Partion Wizard 156MB on a slooow connection.:shake:

ran = zilch

maybe your HDD was unformatted - the bugbear here is that mine already is
 
Yardbent said:
maybe your HDD was unformatted - the bugbear here is that mine already is
Click to expand...
There are two parts to using a disk. Partitioning (i.e. initialising the disk) and formatting the initialised area. If the OS doesn't recognise the system already on there (which Windows doesn't in this case), you have to initialise it first. Without getting it into a state that Windows recognises, you won't be able to format it....
 
arad85 said:
Select Initialise... Once initialised, it should be possible to format it.
Click to expand...

see post #25

''The Device is not Ready''

think we are running out of ideas.:(

thanks chaps
 
posted by Jean-Paul in my thread asking for a mac user in Glasgow

''Just download the parted magic CD which is free, burn it and boot your PC from it. It is a great toolkit to have anyway in case of any issues. With that you can format, read any disk in any format.''..............


any thoughts.......?
 
arad85 said:
It's worth a try if you feel confident enough not to hose your main disk....
Click to expand...

:lol::lol:

think i'll take the wimp option and hold out for a mac user......

Strathaven Computers built my PC - but on holiday - maybe a viable option
 
on you disk management does it give you the option to initialize it ?

mine was already formatted to fat32 but I needed ntfs

I'd initialize it then you should have the format option
 
mrgas said:
on you disk management does it give you the option to initialize it ?

mine was already formatted to fat32 but I needed ntfs

I'd initialize it then you should have the format option
Click to expand...

see post #65 above...^^^^
 
Did you try the verbatim utility I linked to in post 50?
 
RobertP said:
Did you try the verbatim utility I linked to in post 50?
Click to expand...

maybe i read it wrong..?

but it only talks about formatting 'from' FAT32

i'll download it now and see....................................
 
RobertP said:
Did you try the verbatim utility I linked to in post 50?
Click to expand...

that's too risky..............:cuckoo:

pop-up screen says ''Portable Combo Drive'' alright but

the menu does not specify which drive you are about to erase
 
There is a new Apple store open in Glasgow. Why not take it in there and tell them you want to be able to read it on macs and pc. They will probably format it for you as FAT free of charge.
 
Ploddles said:
There is a new Apple store open in Glasgow. Why not take it in there and tell them you want to be able to read it on macs and pc. They will probably format it for you as FAT free of charge.
Click to expand...

:cool:....:thumbs:
 
Just a thought... is this a laptop or desktop? It could be that the USB ports aren't providing enough power when you come to init it. On Win7, you can see the power usage by doing: Control Panel->System->Device Manager->USB hub->Power tab.
 
arad85 said:
Just a thought... is this a laptop or desktop? It could be that the USB ports aren't providing enough power when you come to init it. On Win7, you can see the power usage by doing: Control Panel->System->Device Manager->USB hub->Power tab.
Click to expand...

desktop

Vista Home Premium
shows Control Panel->System->Device Manager->USB controllers

no power tab
 
All in all, having read all the posts, some in disbelief, I think you should get along to Starbucks in Buchanan Street.

Have a nice coffee while them expensive Apple folk,across the street, format your drive (or nor if it's knackerred)!
 
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