Formatting an External Drive and Drive Letters

[Starscream]

So I got an external drive recently---all of 1.5TB---and I'm going to format it to NTFS from FAT32. Simple enough, right?

WRONG!

It's been going solid for about four hours and the progress is somewhere around a quarter. Like an idiot, I didn't manually assign it a drive letter, and I need to use another external drive that's got everything mapped to the drive letter currently occupied by Mr. Takes Forever to Format.

Can I
a) Cancel the format of the big one and go about my business without any threat to that external drive,

-OR-

b) Plug the other one and run the programs on it directly (i.e. go into the proper directory and run the exe) without issue?

Arrgh, I never counted on this. Any advice is welcome.

[Warhead]

What operating system are you running?
Typically under windows, the drive will simply be given the next available letter assignment if the one it usually gets is taken.

My advice is option B unless you have fairly complex programs installed, for example: Nero 9 suite, and its expecting the specific path... there will be some issues in that situation.

[Starscream]

Vista's the OS; came with the computer and I didn't have a spare (or cheap) copy of XP laying about.

One of the things I intended to start was Steam client, so I'm hoping that it's not really insistent on having the exact drive letter that it was installed on so long as I start it from inside the Steam directory and not with the Start menu shortcut. Do you know if it does?

[Warhead]

I'm not sure, there may be registry entries and other calls for specific paths that keep it from working properly. I would try it.

[DougBob]

I've never had to try cancelling a drive format other than a quick format. Usually I use convert to convert a fat to ntfs.

After doing some checking I recommend you let it run it's course. I would not take the risk unless you are very savvy on these sort of things and can take the drive out of the ext. case if something goes wrong.

I guess it's just going to take a long time for it to complete. Sorry!

[Starscream]

Arrgh, didn't see "convert" as an option, so guess I'm SOL. Should have looked in the disk management console instead of jumping right in. I was just under the impression that it wouldn't be twelve hours or more.

Thanks for the input, everyone. Steam'll run on another drive.

[{CLR}geneSW]

Odd that a 1.5tb drive would be originally formatted for FAT32... Thought FAT32 would only really recognize up to like 32gb or something small like that, which was why NTFS became popular as it allowed for larger harddrive sizes to be used within the Windows OS.

[Qicmee]

FAT32 size limit trivia:
FAT32 can be much larger than Windows format tools allow. FAT32 is the format used for external Xbox & PS3 drives. I haven't tried to use these, but Linux has gparted or drive manufacturers sometimes offer utilities that are less restricted than Windows.

[gldisater]

Cancelling the format will not damage the drive. You'll simply have to star the format over the next time.

[juneau]

Cancelling the format will not damage the drive. You'll simply have to star the format over the next time.

My thoughts exactly. All you're doing is deleting the file allocation table then depending on the format type; scanning for bad sectors.

[DougBob]

Odd that a 1.5tb drive would be originally formatted for FAT32... Thought FAT32 would only really recognize up to like 32gb or something small like that, which was why NTFS became popular as it allowed for larger harddrive sizes to be used within the Windows OS.

That was my original thought and I really getting tired of ext drives not being NTFS formatted to start with.

[DougBob]

My thoughts exactly. All you're doing is deleting the file allocation table then depending on the format type; scanning for bad sectors.

Agreed, but with all the information presented it's easier for him to just let it run it's course.
Besides can you tell me how many successful cancels you have done out of ten tries with drives that large. I can't either, but I can tell you I've had more failed attempts at trying to cancel them than I have successful. Oh in XP, never tried that much in Vista.

Speaking of, did that thing finish or not Starscream????

[Sirex]

Odd that a 1.5tb drive would be originally formatted for FAT32... Thought FAT32 would only really recognize up to like 32gb or something small like that, which was why NTFS became popular as it allowed for larger harddrive sizes to be used within the Windows OS.

The max size is dependant on the cluster size, i think the real total max is about 8tb but the cluster size is really inefficient.
Way it works, only a Byte needs to be used in that cluster and its used according to FAT32, and you cant put anything else in it, so you may lose 511b out of a cluster if you set it to 512/cluster.
So imagine if you set that to 32Kb/cluster to get a bigger size...
Lots of free space lost.

[Starscream]

Speaking of, did that thing finish or not Starscream????

Sixteen hours later, yes, it's finished. I've been working on my older external drive to clean it up in preparation for whatever new role I wind up assigning it, but I'm itching to install Steam to the new drive and download that space shooter that's free this weekend.

Gene, the reason these terabyte and more drives aren't formatted to NTFS is because Apple MacOS won't read NTFS, but it will read FAT32. It's simply easier from an inventory standpoint to not have to stock two drives that're otherwise mechanically identical, just to keep some hipster from crying into his latte because the drive doesn't "Just Work".

[DougBob]

Sixteen hours later, yes, it's finished. I've been working on my older external drive to clean it up in preparation for whatever new role I wind up assigning it, but I'm itching to install Steam to the new drive and download that space shooter that's free this weekend.

Gene, the reason these terabyte and more drives aren't formatted to NTFS is because Apple MacOS won't read NTFS, but it will read FAT32. It's simply easier from an inventory standpoint to not have to stock two drives that're otherwise mechanically identical, just to keep some hipster from crying into his latte because the drive doesn't "Just Work".

I realize that, but frankly don't care about Mac