Reformatting an external USB drive from Linux to NTFS/Fat32

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tflaughlin
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Joined: 2014/08/17 15:32:18

Reformatting an external USB drive from Linux to NTFS/Fat32

Post by tflaughlin » 2014/08/17 15:48:44

Hello - I am new to this forum, and this is the only place I found where I could post a new message.
I apologize if this is the inappropriate location.
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I have two FANTOM G-FORCE external USB drives that I believe were formatted to work with a system running Centos 3.x.

I would like to reformat them to either NTFS or Fat32 to be usable with WindowsXP.

When I connect the drives to my WinXP box, the drive is listed as a disk drive under the Device Manager. However under My Computer, the same external drive is not shown, so there is no access to the Format command.

Any suggestions on how to get past this hurdle so I can re-purpose these drives ?
Thanks

BTW - I do not have access to the Linux boxes to which the USB drives were previously connected.

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TrevorH
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Re: Reformatting an external USB drive from Linux to NTFS/Fa

Post by TrevorH » 2014/08/17 17:27:51

Depending on which version of windows you have the procedure is different but you want to get into the disk manager. Try right clicking on My Computer and using the "Manage..." option then under one of the options in the lefthand pane there is something like Disk Management listed. From there you should be able to delete the existing partition and/or reformat it.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

pkcarlisle-dot-com
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Joined: 2014/05/03 21:55:44

Re: Reformatting an external USB drive from Linux to NTFS/Fa

Post by pkcarlisle-dot-com » 2014/08/18 17:57:35

I do not have access to your hardware, but I am going to make some assumptions. I assume.....

- That if you used CentOS 3 , the USB drives are old enough to not be 64 GB drives,
- That you have access to a Linux/CentOS box in general (it need not be the original box to which the flash drives were connected),

If these assumptions are true, you can install the default Disk Utility (sudo yum install palimpsest) or gparted (WARNING! palimpsest and especially gparted can do a lot of damage very quickly, so use appropriate caution). Either of these tools on a CentOS box will format a flash drive to FAT32 or NTFS. In fairness, I did have some trouble trying to format a 64 GB SD Micro with these tools, but that MAY have been the card itself. Smaller sizes seem to format painlessly.

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