Formatting a hard drive - for how long?

urk

Hi - its Verbatim store n go 320GB USB2.0. Before it will do automatic updating it has to be formatted and it just seems to be taking ages (30mins last try) and there's no indication of how long. And its on quick format!

Haven't used one before - does anyone know how long its supposed to take?

Much thanks - Urk

A.Penny.Saved

Have you partitioned it before trying to format? It depends upon how you intend using it what partitioning to use. Most likely an extended logical partition then formatted with ntfs.

See if that improves things.

John_Gray

Quick format shouldn't take longer than a minute or so.

urk

The software is Nero Essentials - the formatting box just comes up after clicking on automatic back up. You click on format and it just starts no mention of partitioning. To be honest I don't know what partitioning is and its not mentioned in manual/instructions. I am finding this piece of equipment extremely difficult to set up all round.

robmar0se

Don't use Nero to format your hdd.

Goto Computer, right click on the drive, then in the drop down list click on format, in next drop down, place a tick in quick format, and then start, as sais - about a minute.

Squire_Fulwood

A physical disc need not be used as just one logical disc drive. You can divide it into three (for example) and call these three "partitions" E: F: and G: or any other three letters not already used by the computer. A disc needs to be told what its arrangement of partitions is and then you can format each one of them separately. E: could be FAT32 and F: NTFS or whatever. Even if you intend using your physical disc as one big logical drive then it still needs to be told that.

I don't know what OS you use but I can take a long shot and say:

Press START
Right click on COMPUTER
Select MANAGE
Select DISC MANAGEMENT

This should tell you your current arrangement of discs. Highlight one of them and right click on the highlight. Steer well clear of any disc (Like C:) that you don't want to !!!!!! up.

urk

Thanks robmarOse and Squire Fulwood - they worked and quickly!

Managed to do an automatic backup of files but can't seem to do the hard drive which is what I got the external one for.

I posted this in backing up but no reply yet and you were both so helpful. My OS in windows XP.

Hi - have just purchased Verbatim 320GB Store and Go which comes with Nero software. Would like to back up the entire laptop and assume you do this by backing up the hard drive (correct me if wrong am not a techie) which I tried and got the following problem:-

after starting backup got a message saying "Nero Backitup cannot lock selected hard disk/partition because it is being used by another program. It is recommended that the drive be locked. If you intend to back up a system partition used by a Windows OS it cannot be locked."


I was given three options - retry (locking) ignore (proceed without locking) and abort. Tried first two and neither worked.

Sorry if this is obvious - it isn't to me. Have done google and Nero site searches for the issue and nothing useful has come up. Do I need to download alternative software to back up the hard drive? - would recommend a good one.

Thanks ever so much for helping - Urk

robmar0se

May I ask why you want to backup the whole drive? Is it because you haven't got the XP sytem disks and you want to have a way of restoring the system should it fail? Or is it to safeguard your data, photos. music etc? Or both?

One thing you should know about Nero disk backup is that it isn't updateable - so the personal data part would be out of date as soon as you took the backup. Usually one would use a file backup system to do a re-iterative backup of data etc, and a separate bootable "clone" of the system. In other words there are two discrete aspects of backing up a system, and really they aren't done with one backup.

andy2004

weird that nero is failing. anyway you really need to defin what you mean by backup.

do you want to backup the entire laptop hdd onto the external so in case of a virus you can recovery everything upto the date the backup was created.
This type of backup is calling imaging. best freeware apps to do this Todo backup http://www.todo-backup.com/products/home/free-backup-software.htm
or
file backup, in which case just copy the files you have created, downloaded directly onto the external drag and drop.

note: the todo backup is probably the better as if your internal laptop hdd dies, all you need to do is buy another 2.5in hdd and replace, then use the image created to reinstall the OS and any program you had installed. just make a note to backup weekly/fortnightly/monthly with it.
do to does both types of backup.

Disk & partition Backup
File and Folder Backup

urk

Thank you robmar0se and andy2004. Yes I want to back up whole laptop so I can do a clean up - the pc clean up sticky recommends backing up thoroughly first and backing up sticky says external HD best for doing a whole pc. Obviously want to do the regular file back ups as well but hard drive is the priority at the mo.

Have downloaded todo but it doesn't provide the external hard drive as a destination option when I try to do disk back up. In my computer the HD is drive E but only C is available.

Sorry again if this is obvious - I do intend to get a bit more techie this year. Thanks - urk