P.O.S.- Western Digital External hard drive

[loser]

good call Anthemz, never thought about them being different file systems, that would cause some pretty major slow downs.

[Meursault]

don't the newer ones come with NTFS anyway? My 1 TB job did at any rate.

[loser]

probably, but have no idea if his is new or not

[Harpoon]

Originally Posted by AnthemZ

The first thing I did to my four WD drives was to save the auto start file, reformat and switch the FAT 32 to NTFS! then I replace the auto start file and run. I've never had problems!

Hmmm.. I'll look into this but I dont know how to do all that..

[Meursault]

Originally Posted by Harpoon

Hmmm.. I'll look into this but I dont know how to do all that..

open My computer
right click the drive in question
open the properties menu
look at the file system stated - is it FAT 32 at all?
if yes, open the format dialog
choose NTFS
be patient

problem obviously is that you need to park all the data on the damn thing elsewhere until the reformat is done.

[Harpoon]

I'll check it out tonight.. You may be on to something.. Usually it gets to like 75% or so and then locks up..

[loser]

just a warning, formatting to ntfs means u lose all data on the drive.

dont know if u know that or not.

[Harpoon]

Will ntfs save to a fat32 format?

[Meursault]

it's either or. You need to opt for one of the formats for any given drive. It's no problem to send data from a FAT32 drive to a NTFS one though, if that's what you're wondering.

[Harpoon]

Its just the fact that it seems to work up to a point..

So what you're saying is if the file formats are the same it will transfer more smoothly?

[AnthemZ]

Originally Posted by Meursault

don't the newer ones come with NTFS anyway? My 1 TB job did at any rate.

I have a brand new 500 gig. and it was FAT32, plus there was that talk of these anti pirate programs from WD. So I wanted nothing to do with all those files that come packed on the HD. The autostart file is easy to spot, kill all the rest!



A quick way check your file systems is to open the Defragmenter, it lists all the file systems on your HD's.

[Harpoon]

Will do...

[loser]

Originally Posted by AnthemZ

I have a brand new 500 gig. and it was FAT32, plus there was that talk of these anti pirate programs from WD. So I wanted nothing to do with all those files that come packed on the HD. The autostart file is easy to spot, kill all the rest!

i didnt know this.

will look into that right now O.O

[Meursault]

Originally Posted by Harpoon

Its just the fact that it seems to work up to a point..

So what you're saying is if the file formats are the same it will transfer more smoothly?

not necessarily, but usually NTFS allows for faster data transfer, both on the target and the source drive.

[Harpoon]

Should I get anything off it that i want before doing this?