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External HDD Question

S

Salvador

Diamond Member
Hello.

I just purchased a 3.5" external USB enclosure and stuck a 120 gb WD SE drive in it that I had been using as a back up drive (not in an enclosure). I have the drive formatted in FAT 32 because I wanted the drive to be seen in both NTFS systems as well as FAT 32 systems.

The problem is that I just hooked up the drive in the enclosure to my XP system with the NTFS filing system and I can't see the drive. When I plug it in, Windows makes a noise telling me that I plugged in a USB device, but I don't see any drives. I thought that it might've been the enclosure, but then I plugged the external hdd into my Win98SE system with the FAT32 file system and it works fine.

My question is this: Am I not able to see the drive in my WinXP (NTFS) system because the drive is formatted in FAT32 or is something else going on? Incompatibilites?

If I want to use this external drive with a FAT 32 system and a NTFS system as a back up drive, how should I have the drive formatted?

TIA,

Sal
 
XP will not format a drive larger than 32GB in Fat32.

As far as I know however, if the larger drive is already formatted in Fat32, XP will see it fine.
 
Thanks for the reply! For the heck of it, I just rebooted the WinXP machine with the external drive and XP saw the drive this time. I think it's weird considering that I could hot swap it with the Win98 machine. You'd think it would be the opposite. Do you think that could be an issue with the enclosure?

If I want to use a hard drive in an external enclosure, shouldn't I have it partitioned as FAT32 so both FAT32 and NTFS machines can see it? If I partition the external drive with NTFS, I wouldn't be able to use it with FAT32 systems. Correct?

Sal
 
Yes, Win98 will not read an NTFS drive. Fat32 should work fine for both XP and 98.

I have an external drive that is partitioned into an NTFS and a Fat32 drive. XP sees both partitions, but 98 only sees the Fat32 partition.
 
Just a thought.

Did you pin the drive correctly.

I have used two types of enclosures and both needed the drive to be pinned differently.

One enclosure needed the drive to be pinned as master.

The other enclosure needed the drive to be pinned CS.

HTH

Marc
 
I have an external drive that is partitioned into an NTFS and a Fat32 drive. XP sees both partitions, but 98 only sees the Fat32 partition
Click to expand...
That's exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks!

Sal
 
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