Help with an old hard drive

system · May 29, 2009, 2:41pm

I have just bought a hard drive enclosure for an 80GB hard drive that I have

It works fine but I want to format it, but have a problem,

It is partitioned (with a recovery console I believe) and when I try to format, it appears to keep the partitioning, is there any way to remove this?

Also I am considering trying to boot from it but USB is not availiable in the BIOS, is there any way to add this?

Thanks,

-Scott-

Pondus · May 29, 2009, 3:01pm

what about this

http://download.cnet.com/Active-Kill-Disk-Hard-Drive-Eraser/3000-2092_4-10073508.html

Pondus · May 29, 2009, 3:03pm

from PC world

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,22920-order,1-page,1-c,alldownloads/description.html

system · May 29, 2009, 5:05pm

I tried the program and it didn’t even clear the hard drive ??? ???
I’m going to use the windows format and format them both to NTFS, as the second partition is FAT32

thinking about it, its not really a problem, the partition is only about 10GB

-Scott-

EDIT:Ok so I formatted both partitions and in both there is a hidden folder called ‘System Volume Information’, Why??
It can’t be deleted or accessed

              Any ideas about the BIOS thing or is this not possible?

Lisandro · May 29, 2009, 7:57pm

Use Easeus partioner to remove\rebuilt the partitions.
http://www.easeus.com/

system · May 30, 2009, 6:45am

I may be wrong, but I think the only way to add USB boot to the BIOS would be through a flash update of the BIOS. This may or may not be available for your particular version of the BIOS depending on who made it and how old it might be.

Perhaps one of the below links might help you :

http://www.weethet.nl/english/hardware_bootfromusbstick.php

http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-22_11-5928902.html

Other helpful links might be found in this ScanDoo/google search results :

http://g.s.scandoo.com/search?hl=en&q=bios+boot+usb&revid=346182321&ei=BtQgSojrH9ONjAfZofG8Bg&sa=X&oi=revisions_inline&resnum=0&ct=broad-revision&cd=6

mkis · May 30, 2009, 7:52am

Just a thought.
You could clear the hard drive using a 98SE or ME boot disk (from bootdisk.com).

If your hard drive shows its properties under fdisk options, then follow instructiions to delete partiions (DOS partition for FAT and non-DOS partition for NTFS). Reboot computer and format in disk management console.

system · May 30, 2009, 5:41pm

That’s exactly what I was looking for, will have a go, thanks Tech

CharleyO,

I think your right, looks to be a bit too far beyond me, I think I’ll just use it for backup.
Thanks for the help,

-Scott-

EDIT:just to clarify do I need to leave some space as unallocated or can I just fill it up with the single partition?

Lisandro · May 30, 2009, 6:37pm

You’re welcome. The free version does not offer the rescue/boot CD.
You can use all space available, no need for not allocate it.

system · May 30, 2009, 6:40pm

Ok thanks again, just thought I might have to because it’s there on the hard drive and the pc hard drive

-Scott-

Lisandro · May 30, 2009, 6:47pm

Scott, please, run Easeus and post a screenshot of the partitions here. Do not make wrong things or you will lose any data on the partitions. Better post before.

system · May 30, 2009, 7:04pm

I was going to delete the small partition and resize the bigger one to fill it up.

The external hard drive (Disk 2) has just been formatted so it has nothing on it anyway, the unallocated space on that totals 7.84MB

The hard drive for the PC (Disk 1 – I’m not going to touch that ;)) has unallocated space of 11.44MB

just curius that’s all

Also whats the difference between the ‘primary’ and ‘logical’? (does it matter?)

-Scott-

DavidR · May 30, 2009, 7:21pm

The very short answer, Primary partitions are bootable, and logical partitions aren’t. So if you wanted to install another OS to dual boot then it would have to be on a Primary partition.

On old IDE fat32 formatted Hard Disks you could only have one Primary partition (possibly why it was called primary), the rest had to be logical as far as I’m aware.

More info, http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/structPartitions-c.html.

system · May 30, 2009, 7:33pm

Ok thanks DavidR,

I’ll leave it as logical then

-Scott-

DavidR · May 30, 2009, 7:48pm

You’re welcome, I doubt it would hurt to have more primary ones, in case you ever decided to clean one out and dual boot with another OS.

Lisandro · May 30, 2009, 8:03pm

For the first drive, you need a bootable cd to remove the first partition and resize the second (system one).
You won’t be able to do it with Easeus, I suppose, as you need to do it at boot time and you’re resizing the system partition.
Maybe you need a live Linux CD with gparted. I’ll try to find you link to it.

For the second drive, you can delete all partitions and use all the empty space to made a new one.

Lisandro · May 30, 2009, 8:04pm

Here: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php
There are screenshots of it there too.

system · May 30, 2009, 8:08pm

Hang on Tech,

I appreciate this but I don’t want to mess with the system hard drive, if it aint broke…

For the HD in the enclosure can’t I just resize?

-Scott-

Lisandro · May 30, 2009, 8:34pm

It will remain with, at least, two partitions. Is this what you want?

Which is the operational system there?

system · May 30, 2009, 9:08pm

Hi, I don’t see why not. I’ve done what you’re wanting to do with easus home edition program.Just delete the old recovery partition, it should become unallocated space then resize the other. hope this helps

Help with an old hard drive

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