Tech Support Forum banner
Status
Not open for further replies.

Suggestion for reformmating an NTFS drive needed

2K views 20 replies 5 participants last post by  loninappleton 
#1 ·
Hello,

Is there a current freeware that is easy to use to simply completely reformat a 320 drive down to 160? My cloning software is refusing to do a transfer due to an 'internal inconsistency.' It's easiest for me just to match the size and avoid the error. The 320 drive is a Maxtor IDE. I have an older Maxblast disk (from before this 320.)

What would be the current freeware or other recommendation to:

Low Level and catch bad sectors on an IDE drive.

Reformat to NTFS numerically or with a slider to match the formatted size of a 160 Seagate Baracuda master? The formatted size is usually not the full capacity of the drive so I want to look up the true size and match that on the reformat.
 
#6 ·
I use CopyWipe (on the UBCD) to do a sector-by-sector clone. I clone drives of different sizes all the time.

Whenever I work on a system I create a full backup (clone) of the original drive. I use my 500GB backup drive and never have an issue this way. I can even re-write the cloned drive back to the original if necessary without any issue.
 
#7 ·
I have to note here that I can't believe the amount of distracting advertising TSF has put on here-- including audio adverts.

I d/led MaxBlast which took an hour and burned the setup .exe directly to a cd. Well that must have been the wrong thing to do because the prompt to launch from the cd simply failed.

What is the corrent way to use MaxBlast 5.

Administrators, can you have the message appear in my email notification and other sites do?

What I do in cases of motion driven ad rubbish is put on a cardboard mask. I never thought it would come to this at TSF.

disappointed.
 
#8 ·
Been a while since I have seen it but run the setup.exe and see if it installs or extracts to an ISO file to burn to a CD report back your findings.

I don't see the advertising as long as I am logged in. When you access the forum not logged in you see them
 
#9 ·
Ok, I'll try to remember about logging in.

Let me ask it another way: is there an ISO of MaxBlast? I've even had trouble using the factory disk of MaxBlast 4 (pretty old from years ago.) I have a SATA DVD drive and it errors out at the prompt to load from floppy (f) or cd (c).
It drops down to "A drive" and quits.

To clarify: resizing is not necessary. I want to get a NTFS partition of sufficient size to clone a 160Gb drive. But this has been a bigger and more complicated job than necessary.
 
#10 ·
Some progress. I ran the MaxBlast exe and installed to another machine.

here:

How to create a bootable MaxBlast 5 CD

... they tell you about how to make an ISO bootable CD to work with.

I loaded that but am still having problems just getting the routine to complete. After using the slider to get half (160) of the total drive size (320) I'm caught in some sort of loop where it keeps asking over and over for the same stuff. It loops back to select NTFS or other format. I don't see where to simply execute the operation.

Also I'm getting a drive E: indication which does not belong at all.

I will see if there's any step by step directions. But my worry is that it will just increase confusion and frustration.
 
#11 ·
Hello,

Is there a current freeware that is easy to use to simply completely reformat a 320 drive down to 160? My cloning software is refusing to do a transfer due to an 'internal inconsistency.' It's easiest for me just to match the size and avoid the error. The 320 drive is a Maxtor IDE. I have an older Maxblast disk (from before this 320.)
What "cloning" software are you using ? Have you tried clonezilla ?
 
#12 ·
Yes I have it.

Update: I gave it a rest for a while and while both drives are connected, I looked at the properties in both.

the volume of the source drive is 160. That's drive size formatted to it's capacity.

the volume in the target is 147 That was set by me in the 320 drive.

So I need to adjust the volume of the target root partition up to 160.

My problem with looking at this stuff is there are additional numbers (and the drive designation at E: when only one drive was attached) that is getting me mixed up .

As expected the help file is broken up into tiny segments requiring a lot of clicks in and out when what I need is a step by step to do this one operation.

A lot of wear and tear on my hardware too because I won't fool with formatting with two drives attached.
 
#13 ·
You are cloning the 160 to the 320, right?

I still suggest you try CopyWipe... It will do a sector-by-sector copy leaving all the original partitions fully intact. After the clone, you can create a second partition on the 320 or expand the partition to fill the drive.

Hard Drive Copy and Secure Wipe Software - CopyWipe
 
#14 ·
I will look it up. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with all the terms. It may sound easy to you but if I encounter an area of needed expertise I don't have-- well, I pretty much can only push buttons that say 'start.'

As you explain copy wipe it sounds intriguing. But then would the partition made be limited to the sectors on the source drive? In other words would the partition made be a tight fit or show space still available?

This is important for reverse cloning or similar size problems I'm having could result.
 
#16 ·
It's okay. The hardest part about using copywipe is making sure you have the right drive set as source and the right one set as destination.

The drive does not have to be formatted (any formatting will be undone) in a sector by sector clone.

Once you have the drives sorted, it is as easy as pressing enter... It takes an hour and you will be able to boot to the 320GB drive as if it were the 160.

If you are interested in trying it, I will be more than happy to provide detailed instructions.
 
#17 ·
@gavinzach,

Since you say there's some ambiguity about wiping the wrong drive I'll set up a test with one of my older drives first. This is worthwhile doing and I appreciate the help. But it might not be done just today. I will report back with success or questions with Copywipe.

Also I'm going to try MaxBlast again. It looks like it has a good user interface. But the resizing procedure remains confusing in that when using Mb I made the volume too small. This because it shows a "filled area" which is not the "empty space" they describe. It could be Mast Boot Record area. This has made a simple job longer to complete. Also I don't know why it would not show completion but had this loop back to a previous screen going on.

I'm assuming Copywipe can be put on a cd disk and run from my SATA drive. I will try to get that done today.
 
#18 ·
Suggest going direct to terabyteunlimited for Copywipe which has a selection for a version to make a bootable disk which I have done.

Hard Drive Copy and Secure Wipe Software - CopyWipe

I first used Softpedia but then saw the bootable info.

Using Maxblast, I've slowed down and read the text on screen as I go. This may have helped a bit in understanding the sizing. Also the color coding gives a clue. These may seem obvious but I've had to slow down to observe them. Re: the loop back problem, there's a point at which I just cancelled and am doing a test with an old version of Ghost to see what I have.

Mb locked up when trying to exit the cd. Mouse completely failed and only a hard reboot got out of it.
 
#19 ·
It shows the drives by the drive Model number (stored in the drives firmware) and not by drive letter. It also shows the capacities. You just need to make sure you select the proper source drive and destination drive.
 
#20 ·
Well, I had another go at MB as above. Last operation appears to have made the right size for my 160Gb drive. So I'm running an old version of Ghost and the transfer looks like it will complete. Yay.

Once that is done I want to recheck the Properties for size since the statistics still look off. Aside from all the what's filled and not filled, I'd like a simple report of the -- what? -- primary partition which is bootable.

XP reports used space but the volume space did not look correct during these manipulations-- rather than the simple reporting of a 160Gb physical drive.
 
#21 · (Edited)
I must have worked the MaxBlast v. 5 prog. correctly this time which just goes to show take your time and read the notes on the screen and observe the color codes. Even so when looking at the 320 Maxtor in XP it does not show a formatted primary partition but the whole volume. I reverse cloned a different 160 drive used as a backup elsewhere to test and the Ghost operation completed. Eg: the 320 drive with new 160Gb partition wrote to the smaller
160 drive.

Then I took a look at CopyWipe. I have that disk in my tool box now and may experiment on some old drives just to see it work. The oldies I have are both 120Gb Seagates and nearly identical in size. CopyWipe will have to stay in the tool box for now since I got the backup working with MaxBlast.

Thanks to all at techsupportforum. I will report back if I fire up CopyWipe to test it out. It's more wear and tear on the computer though esp ribbon cable.

I will mark this solved shortly with any CopyWipe notes.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top