i have a maxtor 120gb hardrive from a DISH TV box. I've been told they are formatted in linux. i've connected to winXP system via usb drive enclosure. in device manager it says " USB mass storage device', but in properties it says ' this device cannot start (code 10). i want to reformat to windows & use for extra storage. can anyone help? thanks, tom
hey bullet, Thanks for the reply. i don't think its the USB because ANY other hardrive i put in the enclosure & plug into the USB i see the drives/files/etc, however these drives were ALREADY windows formatted
Grab yourself a copy of puppy linux .. winduhz can't handle anything but fat32 and ntfs... http://www.puppylinux.org/ then have a look in the menu under "system" and there is gparted.. a full featured gui format and partition tool.
ohh much better idea i just immediately though about hardware failure. i hope varnull had the right solution. best of luck
varnull, thanks for the help. do i need to install this on my winXP laptop or does it have to be installed on different machine/hd partition?
Actually you don't need to install it at all. You should be able to boot the OS straight from the liveCD, without any installations.
Exactly.. thanks.. I was out.. Set bios to boot from cd, then answer a few questions.. the defaults are usually fine. Soon as you get to the desktop it works pretty much like windoze except being linux things tend to be one click. gparted is in the main menu under system or utility depending on release. It's easy enough to use. I should write a guide.. but I'm being lazy.
live cd, i'm not sure i'm gettin this.... are you guys sayin to d/load puppy linux, burn IT to cd, then change bios to boot to that cd? sorry if i seem a little slow
Yes. like Jeims said its "Live" because you can run the OS directly off the CD without installing it to a HDD. After you boot from the disk like varnull said goto the system tab and find gparted.
I recently had this situtation and I downloaded Gparted and burnt it to a dvd and then booted Gparted from the dvd (instead of going to the os) and I was able to reformat the drive then.
