BoatBanter.com - View Single Post - Help needed

John H.[_3_]

On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:35:55 -0500, wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:07:52 -0500, John H.
wrote:

I have a 160 GB external hard disk to which I tried to back up my documents
and settings using the Windows backup system.

After about a half hour, I get a message saying there's not enough room for
the backup, and that if the hard disk is FAT 32, the backup can be no
larger than 4 GB. So I checked, and sure enough, the external HD is FAT 32.

Now what? I already have about 50 GB of stuff on the external HD that I
don't want to lose by reformatting (if that's what's required).

You have a couple of options.

If there is enough room on your computer's harddrive, copy the
archives there temporarily while you work on the external drive. Then
you can use a program called "Partition Magic" to do the
reconfiguration without risk to your archives. Partition Magic "could"
do the conversion with the files in place, BUT: No matter what method
you use to convert the disk to NTFS, the only way to guarantee your
files will be safe is to back them up somewhere else.

The other option is to buy another external hard drive. They are dirt
cheap these days. Newegg is very reliable to deal with and has a ton
of external drives to chose from. They even have a no name 160gb drive
for less than $70 including shipping. I've got several Maxtor's and
they have been great. Still relatively cheap.

I also HIGHLY recommend that you do NOT use Windows Backup for
anything you care about. The reason is simple: When you want to
recover those backups a couple of years from now, you will find that
every new version of Windows has a new version of windows backup, and
they are NOT compatible! Use a separate backup program.

Good info. Thanks Salty.
--
John H