LACIE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE

Question

I bought a external hard drive from dell. Cant get software to reinstall. Also looks like there no way to reformat the hard drive or erase it. I went to there site and cant get no answers there either. Filed 2 tech requests still no answer. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
John

ceri sheeran · Answer

Hi,

What operating system

How is the external hard drive connected USB or Firewire, or something else

You should normally be able to format the external drive by selecting it in My Computer and choose Format.

If you cannot format the drive it may not be partitioned.

In XP

Control Panel

Administrative Tools

Computer Management

Storage

Disk Management

Select the drive and partition it as required.

Then format it.

hth

Ceri

tattoo113 · Answer

Hi Ceri that worked thanks much for your help. Hope you have a great week. John

bjas · Answer

Will formatting the external hard drive change the file system to the same as the computer. I can only get shortcuts when I try to install programs to the Lacie. That sort of defeats the purpose of the extra space doesn't it?  It seems that the Lacie is FATS 32 and the  Dimension 4700 is NFTS. How can i Fix this? I hope this is clear because I am confused.

ceri sheeran · Answer

Hi,

The file system of each drive is independent does not affect and is unaffected by the file ystem on any other drives.

You could have the drives formatted as FAT16, FAT32 or NTFS. FAT 16 is limited to a 2gb partition or drive size.

In some ways FAT32 is better as you would be able to read the files on a computer running WIN 98, 2000 or XP. If there was a serious problem with your NTFS WIN XP machine and you only had access to a WIN 98 FAT32 computer.

You would not be able to read a NTFS formated hard drive on a computer with using the FAT32 file system WIN 98 or 98SE

I would not recommend trying to store programs on the external hard drive.

You will find it very slow to run these. I would only view an external drive as being for data storage or backup only.

If you need a second hard ddrive or more storage space for programs, then install a larger or second internal hard drive.

Install the program on your C: drive but the data on the Lacie drive will work but could be slow if you were trying to watch high resolution films for example, stored on the Lacie drive connected by USB.

You would have to repartition and then reformat the Lacie drive loosing all data on it to change from FAT32 or NTFS. Or use a partition Management program such as Partition Magic or Acronis Disk Director.

You may be getting short cuts, as programs will install by default on your C: drive unless you change this.

hth

Ceri

bjas · Answer

Thanks for the input. I understand some of it. I think the important thing you said was that FATS 32 is better, in general, because I can plug the drive into another computer and read it but not so with NFTS.

I sort of found out about the file allocation system because I couldn't read the disks from my old computer(98 upgraded to XP) on my Dimension 4700; Celeron processor......need I say more? That was a big disapppointment; I had to start from scratch with my files because I had restored my old computer to original state( windows 98). I couldn't read the info on or transfer it to either computer. That confirmed that I really didn't know what I was doing.

I have two 250 GB external hard drives.

I basically wanted to store music on the external hard drive and CDs and tapes take up a lot of physical space. What do you think about this and can you help me. I want to reserve drive C for my important stuff.

How do I prevent programs from installing on drive C by default?

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LACIE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE

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