Backing up old scanned negs - FAT Volume problem.

JohnB47

EDIT: Sorry, it seems certain files do contain the older date as Date Created. I need to look into why that is.

I occasionally scan some old negs (some from as early as 1970s) and add the year the image was taken as a Keyword, using Adobe Bridge. The Metadata shows the Date Created and Date Modified as 2023.

Curiously, when I use FreeFileSync to backup my files to an Intenso 500GB external hard drive, I get the message:  "A FAT volume can only store dates from 1980 to 2099". Presumably FreeFileSync is seeing the Keyword date and is ignoring the Date Created one.

Is there any way around this?

twopenny

Looks like your question should be on the Techie forum but I don't know how to get it moved.

born_again

twopenny said:

Looks like your question should be on the Techie forum but I don't know how to get it moved.

Click on report there are options to chose 👍

Done.

Neil_Jones

JohnB47 said:

EDIT: Sorry, it seems certain files do contain the older date as Date Created. I need to look into why that is.

I occasionally scan some old negs (some from as early as 1970s) and add the year the image was taken as a Keyword, using Adobe Bridge. The Metadata shows the Date Created and Date Modified as 2023.

Curiously, when I use FreeFileSync to backup my files to an Intenso 500GB external hard drive, I get the message:  "A FAT volume can only store dates from 1980 to 2099". Presumably FreeFileSync is seeing the Keyword date and is ignoring the Date Created one.

Is there any way around this?

Copy and paste in Windows?

Newcad

Is there a reason for using FAT format on the external drive rather than NTFS?

(For example I have an old Windows 98 machine that won't recognise NTFS so I have to use FAT formatted drives with it).

Some drives, particularly USB sticks, come pre-formatted as FAT so that they can be used 'out of the box' on either Windows or Mac.

If there is no particular reason why it is FAT rather than NTFS then it can be easily converted without losing the data already on it.

JohnB47

Newcad said:

Is there a reason for using FAT format on the external drive rather than NTFS?

(For example I have an old Windows 98 machine that won't recognise NTFS so I have to use FAT formatted drives with it).

Some drives, particularly USB sticks, come pre-formatted as FAT so that they can be used 'out of the box' on either Windows or Mac.

If there is no particular reason why it is FAT rather than NTFS then it can be easily converted without losing the data already on it.

Thanks. I've no idea why the external hard drive is FAT formatted. I'm sure I didn't do it - probably arrived formatted like that. Any good recommendations for how to do that?

km1500

either rt-click on the drive and choose format (will erase all data) or google how to convert fat drive to ntfs

JohnB47

OK, I have a little problem here. I found a video showing how to convert without losing data and followed that. At the end however, it said the drive was dirty and I needed to run CHKDSK to fix that. Image attached.

I tried running CHKDSK but got a message saying not possible but would I like that done on next restart. The CHKDSK message was : "cannot lock  current drive. Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? Y/N" I said yes.

So I turned off the laptop and restarted. It ran a check of first the C drive and then the external hard drive, with no errors reported. I then tried doing the convert again and got the same message. Any thoughts?

Edit: just unplugged and replugged the external drive and got a message saying there was something wrong with it and "click here to repair". Did that and it found no problems. "Your drive was successfully scanned. No errors were found".

km1500

Probably the safest thing to do is as follows

1. copy of all your data from that hard drive somewhere else temporarily it doesn't really matter where just as long as you have enough space to store it

2. once you have done this format the drive - obviously with a file system NTFS

3. copy all your data back onto the newly formatted drive

Heedtheadvice

I would tend to download one of the main manufacturers disc check programs such as those from Seagate or Western Digital. I often use Seagate's Seatools for diagnostics. Free to download from their site plus a knowledge base all at https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/support/downloads/seatools/ and then take it from there - after making a copy of your files of course. Great checks and make sure you use non destructive checks and fixes. Info on that site too if no faults found.

Also useful info and some basic checks for USB external drives at https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/support/kb/seagate-usb-external-drive-diagnostics-006153en/

JohnB47

Thanks. I've decided to do as suggested by km1500. I've copied the whole lot onto another external drive and I'm now reformatting the 'faulty' one. I unticked "Quick Format" and it's taking a while. I'll let you know how it goes.