Have new Toshiba 320GB Portable HardDrive. During setup program on Toshiba 320GB harddrive, formated disk to NTFS by mistake. Need to reformat it back to FAT32, but rerunning the setup program does not provide the disk format choice again. How can this portable disk be reformatted to FAT32 ? Thanks

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Hi! I had the same problem after disk was reformatted to NTFS. I tried find solution in Internet, but nothing not found. Then I reviewed one more time the instruction and found the following line: "The display feature is not supported under NTFS with partition type "GUID Partition Table (GPT)"." After I format disk to FAT32 back all works fine.

Hi there !!

Method 1: Perform a clean install of Windows XP loadTOCNode(2, 'resolution'); A clean installation consists of removing all data from your hard disk by repartitioning and reformatting your hard disk and reinstalling the operating system and programs to an empty (clean) hard disk. For more information about important things to consider before you partition and format you hard disk and how to partition and format your hard disk by using the Windows XP Setup program, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 313348 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313348/ ) How to partition and format a hard disk in Windows XP To perform a clean installation of Windows XP, follow these steps:

1. Back up all important information before you perform a clean installation of Windows XP. Save the backup to an external location, such as a CD or external hard disk.
2. Start your computer from the Windows XP CD. To do this, insert the Windows XP CD into your CD drive or DVD drive, and then restart your computer.
   
   Note To boot from your Windows XP CD, the BIOS settings on your computer must be configured to do this.
3. When you see the "Press any key to boot from CD" message, press any key to start the computer from the Windows XP CD.
4. At the Welcome to Setup screen, press ENTER to start Windows XP Setup.
5. Read the Microsoft Software License Terms, and then press F8.
6. Follow the instructions on the screen to select and format a partition where you want to install Windows XP.
7. Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the Windows XP Setup.

If you have successfully installed Windows XP, you are finished. If these steps did not help you install Windows XP, go to the "Next Steps" section.

Here's the link that contains the screen shots as well:

http://www.buildeasypc.com/sw/windows_xp.htm

Try these steps & hopefully you will be able to format the Harddrive.

Regard's
Anurag Shukla

The drive letter and USB port are not inherently tied together. you can give it a drive letter as long as nothing else is going to use that letter inherently, and be fine. Did giving it "F" work?

you need to give it a drive letter

A more reliable way to do this is via the computer management console

Start / Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer management / Disk Management.

Your drive should show up in here.

if it says Healthy and just above that gives the file system eg. NTFS or FAT32 etc it should be fine but may just need a drive letter.

If it does dot say any of those then right click on it and use the format option. Select how you want to format it (NTFS for XP is preffered)
and then tell it to do a FULL format. and also give it a drive letter !
It may take a while but I find it more reliable overall.

If it didn't have a drive letter then right click and use the Change Drive Letter and Paths option, then add a drive letter and use the one it offers.

I like to re-boot just to be sure windows sees it properly

To reformat is to wipe everything off of your computer's harddrive. If you do not have the Recovery Disks, or an Installation Disk, you will be sitting there with a blank harddrive, and no operational computer.

I just wanted to explain that.

Most people want to restore their computer to what it was like from Day 1, when it came from the factory. For your Toshiba this is, "Recovering the original factory image"

Before you start, you may want to save any documents you have, in your My Documents folder. (My Pictures, My Music, My Video, Documents)
Burn your personal documents off to a CD, or DVD disk.
AFTER you restore back to the original factory image, they WON'T be there anymore.

Your Toshiba has a recovery partition on the harddrive.
Most computers do not have the Recovery Disks sent with them.
Saves the computer manufacturer money. They found that most users do not use the Recovery Disks, and would rather use a repair shop.

They also put the Recovery Partition on the harddrive. Plus the user is asked if they want to make a backup, (Recovery Disk), when they receive the laptop, and start it for the first time.
Problem is you are only asked once.

To recover back to the original factory image:
1.Laptop off. Press and hold down the 0 (Zero) key. Press the Power On button.

2.The Toshiba Recovery Wizard screen should appear.

3.Click on the empty circle to the left of -> Recovery of Factory Default Software.
(DO NOT click on Erase the Hard Disk!)
Click on Next

4.Click the circle for -> Recover to out-of-box-state
Click on Next

5.You'll see a warning message, "All data will be lost during the recovery process"

That's the data, (Information), you have in your My Documents folder, plus any programs you downloaded, or installed.
If they weren't there when the laptop came from the factory, they will be gone.
You know this, it's okay.

You are recovering, (Restoring), your laptop back to what it was like when it came from the factory.

Click on Next. This will start the recovery process. When it is finished a message will come up, and state that the HDD has been recovered. (HarDDrive)

Press on any key. You are finished.
Questions?

May require a new Master boot record or boot starp sector written to disk. Unless you have the tools and thre knowledge I suggest a PC repair shop. It will take about 20 mins withe the right tools.

there is not 2 drives on your laptop. The single drive is partitioned into 2 parts.
When you re-install XP, be sure to re-install on the first partition (it will ask you during the setup). If you re-format the entire drive all will be lost.

To transfer files larger than 4GB to the drive, the harddrive must have an NTFS File system. Unfortunately, the FAT32 File system is not capable of handling a single file larger than 4GB (to be exact, one byte less than 4GB). Follow the steps below to format the harddrive with an NTFS File system:
Warning, all data on the harddrive will be lost! Please backup the data on the harddrive before proceeding.

1. Locate My Computer (Computer in Vista). Right-click on the harddrive and select Format.
2. Select NTFS from the File system drop-down list.
3. Select Quick Format as the Format option and click Start.
Note: If NTFS is not an available option, close the Format window and follow steps 4-9.

4. Right-click My Computer (Computer in Vista) and select Properties.
5. Select the Hardware tab and click Device Manager.
6. Expand Disk drives and right-click on the harddrive. Select Properties.
7. Click on the Policies tab and select "Optimize for performance.”
8. Click OK.
9. Repeat steps 1-3.

yea this is a hard one you will need a recovery program something good that will go in deep and find all the shadow programs on your (HDD) Hard drive. if your computer does not recognize this HDD or memory stick this means u have reformatted a computer and the HDD or memory stick has been taken out half way through the format process. if you get a recovery program this means u will not get everything off it will only take the shadows of all your programs and files.

I hope this helps


From the best man