How To Partition An External Drive?

[Jackliz]

Howdy, Framily.
We received our new Seagate 160GB external hard drive today. Our objective is to have this external drive available for backups of my laptop computer and Jack's laptop computer.  At least that is what we would like to do. The problem is that neither Jack nor I know how to partition a drive.  Suggestions and/or directions would be greatly appreciated.   

Regards,
Liz

 

[Will]

If you have Window XP, you can.
Right click on the "Start" Button - select "properties"
click the "Customize" Button.
Make sure "Display Administrative Tools" is checked.  Hit OK
Hit "start" > "Programs" > "Administrative Tools" > "Computer Management"
Under the "Storage" Menu select "Disk Management"
using this you can creat and change partitions.  Make sure to set them as "Active" after you create them.

 

[Ned]

Hook up the drive, Windows should see it and install the necessary drivers.  Then Start | Run and enter diskmgmt.msc.  This will start the disk management utility.  The new drive should show up as an unformatted drive.  Open the Help to "Checklist adding a new disk" and follow the instructions.  You will have to logged in as an administrator to do all of this.

 

[Jackliz]

Thank you, Will and Ned.

Regards,
Jack and Liz

 

[Jackliz]

Hook up the drive, Windows should see it and install the necessary drivers.  Then Start | Run and enter diskmgmt.msc.  This will start the disk management utility.  The new drive should show up as an unformatted drive.  Open the Help to "Checklist adding a new disk" and follow the instructions.  You will have to logged in as an administrator to do all of this.

May I please have some help with the following task? I am at the Format drive procedure.  There are some boxes to be checked. The ones that I am not sure about are: Allocation unit size, Perform a quick format, and Enable file and folder compression.

There is a choice of a default on the Allocation unit size. I am not sure if that is the one to choose.
Should Enable file and folder compression be chosen? Seems a logical thing to choose, but then we have not done this before.  ;D

Regards,
Liz

 

[Will]

NTFS filesystem
Default unit allocation unit size
Leave the other two boxes unchecked.

 

[Ned]

Don't do a quick format, and don't check the Enable file and folder compression options.  Those can be done later, if desired, on a folder basis.  Use the default allocation unit size, as Will said.

 

[Jackliz]

THANK YOU again to Ned and Will.
I have more questions.  ???

I just want to understand the concept of how to achieve my objective with this new external hard drive. In non-technicalese, I want this hard drive to be divided into 2 parts; one part will be for backups for Jack's laptop, the other part will be for backups for my laptop. First comes the process of formatting the hard drive. (Right now my laptop recognizes it as Drive E.) When this step is completed,  partioning this drive is the next step. I am ASSUMING that partitioning the drive equals dividing it into 2 parts(my non-technical term). (How am I doing so far?  )

I have a choice of the following:
create partition primary
create partition extended
create partition logical

What is the difference between these choices? And which one do I choose do achieve my objective? Duh.

Funny thing about this, when I was in college working on my IS degree, I never had to do any disk management. And even with his extensive background in computers and electronics, Jack didn't do this either.

Regards,
Liz 

 

[Ned]

If Windows sees it as drive E:, then it's already formatted.  To reformat it to 2 partitions, you will have to delete the existing partition and start over.  First you create an extended partition, then create the two logical partitions in the extended partition.  Format each as NTFS.  Each computer will see the drive as two drive letters, the letters assigned will depend on how many other partitions and optical drives you have.  If you have on C: drive and one optical drive D:, then the partitions will be E: and F:.

 

[Jeff]

Liz:

Is there a particular reason you want two partitions? Both backups should go on the E: drive as long as you will let Jack get to your data. ;D

 

[BernieD]

Liz

I agree with Jeff. When I got my external HD, I didn't partition. Then later, I realized that I wanted to keep 2 separate backups, one for my desktop and one for my laptop. I didn't feel reformatting at that point was worthwhile, so I decided to use separate folders on the drive; one for each of the backups. This works fine and gives the added flexibility of not having to worry about resizing the formats later on if neccessary.

 

[Jackliz]

If Windows sees it as drive E:, then it's already formatted.<<<

Hmmmmm.  Well, then, this hard drive must have been formatted by  Seagate. I didn't format it. All I did was hookup it's power supply, connect it to my laptop via a USB cable and then push the button on the hard drive which turned it on.

>>> To reformat it to 2 partitions, you will have to delete the existing partition and start over.  First you create an extended partition, then create the two logical partitions in the extended partition.  Format each as NTFS.  Each computer will see the drive as two drive letters, the letters assigned will depend on how many other partitions and optical drives you have.  If you have on C: drive and one optical drive D:, then the partitions will be E: and F:.

This sounds really complex. Maybe I could have 2 folders on this one drive: one for Jack and one for me.

 

[Ned]

That would work too, Liz.