Re: Hard drive format compatibility - what am I missing?

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From: BAR (BAR_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 10/27/04 

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 16:23:01 -0700

Your general assumptions are correct.
XP can handle all File Formats: Me cannot handle formats above FAT32.

Try these 2 Options [if you have Norton Ghost].
Create the Ghost start disk and accomodate USB device support during the
creation process, then on the XP system, boot from the start disk and create
the Backup: given that the external drive should be recognised by Ghost as it
loads its own Caldera DOS and you are not running any XP operating system
elements.

Or you could attempt to format the drive under XP and allocate a drive letter.
Then take the drive across to the Me system and see if that one can access
the drive. If so create your backup [are you using Ghost?] of the Me System.
Then take it to XP system and create the backup of that one.

"Brian Meadows" wrote:

> On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 15:31:13 -0400, Brian Meadows <brian@meadows.pair.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> Sorry for the omission - that's Windows XP HE. Hardly use it myself, I forgot
> about the two versions.
>
> >
> >I'm trying to help out someone with setting up a backup procedure.
> >
> >There are two PCs to be backed up, a laptop running Windows Me (it's not capable
> >of running 2000 or XP) and a desktop running Windows XP SP2.
> >
> >The backup device is an 80 GB external USB drive, and the aim is to get both
> >backups on to the one external drive.
> >
> >I was under the impression that formatting the whole drive as one humongous
> >FAT32 partition would work, that Windows XP would read and write either NTFS or
> >FAT32. Seems it isn't that simple. :-(
> >
> >I created a primary partition on the external drive using the laptop (Win Me),
> >let it take the whole 80 GB, formatted it and backed up the laptop. Everything
> >OK so far.
> >
> >I then switched the external drive to the XP desktop, and found I couldn't see
> >the drive. Fired up the disk administrator, and Windows XP thought the drive was
> >all unallocated space.
> >
> >I then tried creating a smaller FAT32 partition, 20 GB to be exact, formatted
> >that on the laptop and backed it up again without a problem. Switched the
> >external drive to the XP machine, expecting to be able to create another
> >partition to hold the XP backup. Nope. I looked at the drive in the disk
> >administrator, once again it saw the whole 80GB as unallocated space.
> >
> >Does anyone have any idea what's going on? I was under the impression that XP
> >could handle both NTFS and FAT32 partitions. Is there some kind of size limit
> >for the FAT32 partition? Does it all need to be formatted on the XP box?
> >
> >Thanks for any assistance,
> >
> >Brian.
>
>

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