Hi All

I have just obtained a 1tb Seagate hard drive that I want to format in ext3 so I can use my HD camera in conjunction with my Foxsat HDD. My problem is: no matter how many times I try I can not get into the BIOS of my Dell Optiplex 755. I have tried every key, but to no avail.

Consequently I am unable to boot from the CD drive where I have downloaded "Geparted" and therefore can't format the drive as required.

Are there any other routes I can investigate to get the drive formatted?

Many thanks

Robert

I use Partition Magic.

Google shows a free trial version available.

See Here :-

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...6&postcount=19

Rgds.


Les.

Thanks Pggle and Savvy

My drive seems to be up and running with some of my new HD films and saved tele..

However, I do have one other question.

The mains plug is way behind the TV and is hard to get to. I am assuming that the Seagate would prefer to be switched off between operations, the cable is long enough to show at the side of the TV so would it be in order to put an in-line switch between the Mains plug and the HDD?

Thanks

Robert

I don't see why not.

Something like this? https://www.auto-connect.co.uk/WA44B...ster_2660.html

You'd have to cut the plug of the lead to the HDD to go into 1 side of this, and make up a mains lead with a plug to go into the other.

I'm sure some electrician will now come along and say why you shouldn't do this

Rgds.


Les.

May not help with your current purchase, but I,ve just started playing with one of these http://www.systemsassurance.com/syss...asp?pn=0S00062 as a backup to my existing external drive. Much to my surprise it has a power on feature which turns the drive on when the power is present and the USB is active. This feature survived the formatting process and sure enough if left with the mains adaptor plugged in, the drive comes to life as the Humax boots up out of standby. The power adaptor is stone cold so I don't think its using much power when the drive is off! Thus if you can re-allocate your original purchase to another use one of these Hitachi drives might answer your problem. No cutting of wires and nasty warranty problems too

Although I used GParted to format my drive some time ago I found now that I can get a driver to install in windows that makes accessing the drive quite transparent. I have not tried formatting but it ought to be possible I would imagine. See http://www.fs-driver.org/
It works fine on my desktop or laptop computers and the only way you can tell its a ext2 drive is to look at properties. Good luck!
Richard.

What you have detailed here is what I have always assumed to be the normal operation for power saving HDD’s.

This is exactly how my powered drives work however I have the power supply for the external HDD connect to a radio controlled plug socket so I can turn it off without going behind the TV set up.

Be carefull, writing to an EXT3 drive under windows can corrupt the file system and other problems

http://www.hummy.org.uk/forums/showp...34&postcount=8

Thanks Everyone for your help with this problem.

I feel a bit stupid now, but I have just noticed that the drive has built in power management.

You can probably tell I'm still a relative newbie at all this.

The contributors on Digital Spy are worth their weight in gold.

Thanks again

Robert

I use Ubunto running in Windows for formatting to EXT 3 and yes you must be very careful.

Corrupting files besides, a couple of months back I did a format of an external drive and accidently clicked the wrong drive and the machine started to format the drive with the Windows OS on.

Although I noticed what I had done within a few seconds, it was to late, that was enough to stop Windows loading on the next start up.

I had to do a restore and reload all my old programmes and files taking hours.

So in the words of GT and the Hill Street Blue boys, be careful out there.

I only just noted today my Netgear ReadyNas Duo has the option to format an external USB drive in EXT3 format.

I have now used this to format a 1.5Tb drive and will try in on my HDR later today...


Automan.

There's another solution to having Linux running alongside your native OS. I've tried it, and it beats hunting around for the Live Linux CD, rebooting etc.

See here http://www.avforums.com/forums/frees...l#post11099795 Read the posts about how to get your USB drives recognised.

I like it.

Rgds.


Les.

Big Mistake...
Moved lots of recordings over taking hours...

Went back to HDR and drives had spun down.

When they did startup all the new files were gone!

Put it back on my Netgear and it show only the original and no HDR files.

So this method is no good

Automan.

Bit lost here.

Are you saying that you formatted a drive ext3 and connected it to the hdr which recognised it OK.

Then you transferred recordings to it and they copied OK.

And when you reconnected the drive to the hdr the files were not there ?