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Thread: Grumpy External HD (long)

  1. #1
    OK, I've a problem.

    Basically, my external HD decided that all the space above just shy of 100 GB was unallocated. So, now my F: drive, the EHD, is 93% full. I also have 53.26 GB of unallocated space. I'd vastly prefer it to be just one drive rather than change that unallocated space into a logical drive. So going into Computer Management, and then checking the Help file the fact of the matter is that since my EHD came formatted as a FAT32 device, the simple volume that is my F drive cannot be extended into the extra space. So, I am at a crossroads. I have 91.5 Gb on that F drive, and am not too keen on losing I have come up with two possible solutions, that I would like someone to either approve of, and thereby ensure that I'm not doing something unfixable and stupid, or say no and give me better advice. So here are my options as I see them.

    A. BBS someones really large hard drive with at least 91.5 G free, transfer all of my F drive there, and then reformat the whole EHD as NTFS, and replace the files on the new full sized EHD.

    B Take the unallocated space, and make a logical drive, G. Transfer about 1 G of files from F to C, and then as much of F that will fit to G, then once there is enough space, add the now free portion of F to G, and repeat until there's nothing on my F drive, add the little bit from C back, and rename the logical drive F, and go on with my life.

    Both have their pro's and cons. The problem with A is that (1) I'm Poor, (2) I don't have the manual dexterity to steal something as large as a HD, and (3) my friends don't like me all that much. The problem with B is that I don't know whether or not it will work, and if that would be practical.

    A note on why the space became unallocated. I believe, and this just my theory, I have nothing to prove it by. A week or two ago, while installing SuSE on my computer, I had my EHD plugged in to my computer. I think that during the installation rather than just partition the C drive, it did the F as well. I later deleted both newly created partitions, and redid the installation without the F drive plugged in. It partitioned just the C drive this time. So I think that the two deleted parsons on the F drive turned into unallocated space since I cannot extend a FAT32 drive (Which the computer would've done by itself)

    I've attached the computer management screen shot that shows my drives and how they're broken up.

    Thanks a lot for helping with this.
    Attached Images Attached Images

  2. Software & Hardware   -   #2
    Livy's Avatar Simpleton
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
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    download partition magic, it will be able to resize the partition you have into one big one without losing any data, and then convert it to ntfs

    edit: or here is some more

    http://www.ranish.com/part/
    http://www.acronis.com/products/partitionexpert/

    i think the ranish one is free.
    Last edited by Livy; 02-27-2005 at 05:58 PM.

  3. Software & Hardware   -   #3
    tesco's Avatar woowoo
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    Yup i agree with livy as well, one of those partition manager programs will be able to resize the current partition for you without losing any data.

  4. Software & Hardware   -   #4
    Snee's Avatar Error xɐʇuʎs BT Rep: +1
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    Unless you bugger it up somehow. It's so much fun trying partition magic for the first time and somehow deleting all the data on the drive.

    Backups are good, m'kay?

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