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Hard drive setup and installation "Basics"
Okay. I was in a forum trying to help with a hard
drive issue and found that the basics of hard drive installation needed
to be discussed.
When a hard drive is installed in a computer, DVR or gaming system
it is partitioned and formatted. The problem the person was having is
that they could not get Windows to format the drive to a size bigger
than 9 Megs instead of the 30 gig that the drive was supposed to be.
They were trying to get the drive to format but didn't appear to know
about partitioning the drive. This drive was pulled from a DVR and had a
partition designed to work with the DVR. The balance of the drive left
blank was 9megs and that is all that windows could see.
Windows does not have the ability to partition a new drive or
re-partition an older hard drive. All major manufacturers of hard drives
have software available to partition and format your hard drive. XP and
Vista will help partition and format the drive but only if you are
installing Windows or act like you are going to install and then cancel
the install before it gets into the Windows install portion. If you are
adding a hard drive to your current system, then it would probably be
best to use software that allows you to work with your hard drive
through Windows.
I normally use Casper XP but its a paid program. I have also used
Western Digitals Lifeguard and Maxtor's Maxblast programs. The
WDlifeguard for Windows is my software of choice when it comes to free
software and although they don't guaranty the software will work
correctly with other drives they don't block you from use because you
don't have a Western Digital hard drive. (Western Digital Recently
started using
Acronis True Image for cloning drives so I have not tried using it
on another drive besides a Western Digital drive.) These hard drive programs will
also allow you to copy your hard drive to a new or bigger hard drive if
you need or want to do that.
So remember, when you add a new or used drive if you want to make
sure your getting the full amount of space from the drive:
1.Find software that will
allow you to partition the Hard drive.
2.Delete and then create a new partition.
3.Format the drive.
After you have done these 3 things your drive should
be ready to use.
Remember that after you partition and
format a drive you will not have 100% of the drive available no matter
what. Partitioning and formatting a drive uses part of the drive so for
example, a 40 gig drive may yield only 37 gigs and the larger the drive
the more you give up when you partition and format your drive.
Hope this helps.
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