formatted portable to dishnetwork

[nitro498]

I formatted this 80 gig portable drive using a VIP 622 DVR (Dishnetwork). I really would like to reformat so windows could recognise the drive now. I did not transfer anything from the DVR to the drive. I did not know the special formatting would do this. Any ideas?

 

[DominionSeraph]

Plug it in and hit format?

 

[nitro498]

I wish it were that easy. Let me back up:
I am running 7/64 bit. The OS does not assign the portable drive a letter. To see the drive- you have to click "Devices and Printers". there the drive is listed as "CMS USB 2.0 Storage Adapter" (BTW, CMS is the manufacturer of the drive). By double-clicking the icon- properties pops up. There is not a "format" option anywhere. Dishnetwork did it this way so as not to allow downloading of movies. I dont want to break their code. I just want to use this drive with windows again!

 

[GoSharks]

Can you see the drive in Disk Management?

 

[RebateMonger]

Dedicated disks like that are sometimes "locked" by the system builder.

I don't know much about it and a quick search didn't give an immediate solution.

Here's one site with what's probably relevant information:

http://forum.hddguru.com/locked-hard-drive-t11268.html

 

[Emulex]

you need to delete the linux and special partitions - hirens boot cd has some good partition tools to delete non windows partitions.

then partition the drive proper
then format

or use fdisk /mbr and fdisk if you remember how that works

 

[CZroe]

This is amusing. The user confusion never would have happened had Microsoft never married the concept of partitioning and formatting. You can only format a drive letter if it is already in a partition format to RECEIVE a drive letter (IOW, understood by Windows).

The old way:
Launch FDISK
Delete the "Unknown partitions"
Create your own partition/extended partitions for specified, supported, file systems which will then receive drive letters
Exit FDISK
Format with the Format utility or Windows
Use as you wish
???
Profit

Now you have to go into the MMC and load the Disk Management snap-in (My Computer > Manage > Disk Management if you want to take the easy route), identify the disc with the unrecognized partition, clear it out, and create a formatted partition (or more) including a specified filesystem formatting.

Drive letters do not represent your physical drive so you can't expect to partition and format through them. It's that simple. You don't plug in a blank drive and get a new drive letter to format.

The only reason the "right-click a drive letter and format" capability is still there is for removeable media and erasing an already formatted drive.

 

[nitro498]

Thanks for the help. I booted w/ Hirens and fixed it.