Windows 7 - reformatting external USB drive

Asked By Jo-Anne Naples

17-Jun-08 08:39 PM

I recently bought two external USB drives for backing up the internal hard
drive on my Windows XP SP3 computer. I also bought Acronis True Image 11
Home to do the backups. I thought that when the program did its first
backup, it would reformat the external drive from FAT32 to NTFS. However, it
didn't. I asked on the Acronis forum and was told the program doesn't
reformat drives but that it might be a good idea to do so myself; I was also
told that this reformat won't affect data on the drive.

Should I do the reformat? If so, how do I do it? (If you could point me to a
website offering this information, that would be wonderful.)

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

17-Jun-08 08:52 PM

If you clone from drive to drive, you erase everything on the
destination drive, or at least the partition you clone to.

If you backup (image) your internal HD, then it will just place a file
on the external drive containing the image.

Either method you can recover from.

Clone just means that you can just install the external drive in your
internal and away you go.

I like to make images.   I can make quite a few 10 gig images on a 320
gig drive.  And go back quite a ways back to see old versions of files.

HTH.

17-Jun-08 09:01 PM

Thank you, Al! I think I was making images with my backup rather than
cloning the drive. What Acronis did was create five backup files. I've been
told that's because it had to split the backup into 4GB files, since with
FAT32 there's no way of having a file of more than 4GB. Hence my interest in
reformatting to NTFS.

Jo-Anne

17-Jun-08 09:03 PM

Jo-Anne Naples wrote:
Yes, I have my drive formatted to NTFS, and it holds 36 gig files just easy.

17-Jun-08 09:11 PM

I don't think it matters to Acronis what format the backup drive is.
If you should want to reformat, it will destroy any data on the drive,
unless it is in a separate partition, then you can format the other
partition. The time to test it is now. Move a file from it's usual
location then see if Acronis can replace it from the USB drive.

Should you desire to reformat a USB drive, plug it in then go to
Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Disk Management. Then right click
on the USB drive and select Format. MAKE SURE YOU ARE FORMATTING THE
CORRECT DRIVE. It will give you a drop-down choice to format in NTFS
or Fat32.

I just formatted a USB drive tonight using this, as well as changing
it from 3 partitions to a single partition. Very easy.

--
Gerald Ross
Cochran, GA

Too much of a good thing is *wonderful*.

17-Jun-08 09:17 PM

Thank you, Gerald! That's exactly what I wanted to know.

Jo-Anne

17-Jun-08 09:17 PM

Thank you again, Al!

Jo-Anne

17-Jun-08 09:19 PM

Just for your peace of mind, cloning is best reserved for making an
exact duplicate of a hard drive [partition] into another hard drive
that might eventually be used inside the computer as a functioning
part. OTOH, making a disk image file is more typical for producing a
more precise backup of a hard drive, or parts of it. The image file is
typically used to restore files, folders, etc., when the need arises.
If large image files are involved, it is better to use NTFS partitions.

17-Jun-08 09:30 PM

Thank you, Ghostrider! I'm beginning to understand the difference.

Since it probably wouldn't be easy to remove my external drives from their
cases, I think I should plan on always imaging the drive rather than cloning
it. If my internal drive dies, I would then buy another one and restore to
it from the external.

As far as I know, Acronis is an imaging program rather than a cloning
program--or at least at its website it refers to its "patented disk imaging
technology." Moreover, you have to make a separate boot disk with Acronis
(if you want one), which suggests that it's not cloning the internal
drive--right?

Jo-Anne

17-Jun-08 10:03 PM

If your source drive system partition is formatted as NTFS (which it most
likely is if you're using WinXP), you should be imaging it or cloning it to
a similarly formatted NTFS partitition in the backup drive.    I'd say get
rid of the FAT32, unless you have some special need for that (like backing
up a source's FAT32 partition to a similar partition on the backup drive).

17-Jun-08 10:40 PM

How to Convert FAT Disks to NTFS

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb456984(TechNet.10).aspx

17-Jun-08 11:21 PM

Thank you, Jim! I have printed it off and will use it tomorrow to format my
second external drive. Then I will see if I can do it to the first one without
destroying the data on it.

Jo-Anne

17-Jun-08 11:21 PM

Thank you, Bill! I will do the reformatting tomorrow.

Jo-Anne

18-Jun-08 11:15 AM

Just some tech jargon info to add to what's been said alredy in reply.  The
partition contains the file table information and that file table is the
format, whether FAT32 or NTFS.  Normally, with standard partitioning tools,
you have to remove the partition and create a new one with a file table
appropriate to what you want.  XP has a converter to get around that for
FAT32 to NTFS.  If you're starting with a blank hard drive, no files, you
might as well just do it the old way in  XP's disk management.  This will
map out any bad areas during the process.  Converting tool in XP does not.

Since you have 2 large hard drives, I would consider using one for an
imaging target.  The other, I would use as a monthly clone target, leaving
disconnected/off otherwise.  If your onboard hard drive fails, you can toss
in the clone for quick recovery.  If that fails, you can wipe the clone with
TI, and restore your latest image to that hard drive.
--
Dave

18-Jun-08 12:18 PM

Thank you, Dave! You've put it very clearly. One more question: If I can
clone to my hard drive (and I'm not sure if Acronis True Image does that), I
assume I'd have to take it out of the case to put it into the
computer--right? That doesn't look possible with the two drives I bought (WD
Passport).

Thank you again!

Jo-Anne

19-Jun-08 01:30 AM

Cloning will make an exact image to whatever the hard drive you choose for a
target.  Using the clone onboard your PC for a boot drive is a factor if
your bios doesn't support 48 bit lba (large hard drives).  If that is a
problem, the imaging software, if you make the imaging restoration the exact
size of the original (default), you should have no problems.
--
Dave

19-Jun-08 01:05 PM

Thank you, Dave! Anna on this list said that my Dell should support large
hard drives; I think she's had experience with the same model I have.
Nonetheless, for now I'll stick to imaging with Acronis--and might well do
some regular backups at least of my data, either with my old Easy CD Creator
or with xcopy (which I used back in the pre-Windows days).

Jo-Anne

20-Jun-08 12:25 AM

xcopy will not work.  xxcopy will most of the time.
--
Dave

20-Jun-08 01:17 AM

Dang! I thought xcopy could copy to any "real" drive although not to a CD or
DVD. I Googled xxcopy; I assume you're referring to a freeware program that
I would need to download rather than something that comes with
Windows--right?

Thanks again!

Jo-Anne

20-Jun-08 02:59 AM

Yup - you gotta download it (it does not come with Windows).    But (IIRC),
it is free.    (But my memory might be off).