reformatting external hard drive

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reformatting external hard drive - maxtor 3000 ls

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penmark View Member Profile	Jul 9 2005, 02:55 PM Post #1
Member Group: Members Posts: 21 Joined: 10-January 05 Member No.: 9,202	I am trying to reformat the above-mentioned external hard drive. It came formatted in fat32. using windows xp, i can only reformat in ntfs, but i dont really understand the difference between the two formats, and the partition size, etc. So, can i get the drive back to factory specs, and how, or if i have to use NTFS, how? Thanks.

maj.stiffy View Member Profile	Jul 9 2005, 09:10 PM Post #2
Member Group: Members Posts: 23 Joined: 4-July 05 From: Tennessee Member No.: 25,912	if you want to migrate your drive to other computers for universal compatability i would go w/ fat32. if you want a little more efficiency/security you could use ntfs. the only difference between ntfs and fat32 is security and limits on file sizes/volumes(partition sizes). ntfs can read fat32 partitions but fat32 cannot do the same. i would go with ntfs if you are going to be using this as like a backup, but for portability i would go with fat32 anyone else have thoughts?? This post has been edited by maj.stiffy: Jul 9 2005, 09:11 PM -------------------- maj.stiffy

penmark View Member Profile	Jul 10 2005, 08:13 AM Post #3
Member Group: Members Posts: 21 Joined: 10-January 05 Member No.: 9,202	Thanks, but how can i reformat in FAT32 using windows xp home or some utility?

maj.stiffy View Member Profile	Jul 10 2005, 09:39 AM Post #4
Member Group: Members Posts: 23 Joined: 4-July 05 From: Tennessee Member No.: 25,912	you can use the format in winxp...right click on drive icon and click format use what filesystem you want. if that doesn't work , you can use a 3rd party utility like partition magic...if you need any more help just ask -------------------- maj.stiffy

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