[Noisebridge-discuss] Mac MSDOS FAT32 XHDD drive formatting problem...

[Eric W. Rasmussen]

That's a great tutorial. Thanks for suggesting Linux as a solution. I'll 
simply add that Unetbootin is my boot creator of choice. Everyone has 
their preferences.

Sounds like "Someone" needs to upgrade to a better (ahem...linux) 
operating system.

I just performed the final upgrade to my laptop (Asus U52F). I already 
replaced the RAM w/ 8GB a couple of years ago. I installed a Samsung 
120GB SSD and put the original HDD (600GB) into a CD drive caddy. I did 
the appropriate modifications for TRIM, swapiness, cache and 
mounting/permissions. LinuxMint14. This thing runs my vm's like they are 
native. My RAM usage is lower. My CPU usage is lower.

The weather is great! Thanks Linux.

On 06/11/2013 10:51 AM, Aaronco Thirtysix wrote:
>>> I have a X USB HD formatted OS 10.5 FAT32 that I would like to format as a Windows XP drive.
> Besides what Eric wrote, you could also use a Linux Live distro to
> partition and format the X USB HD "as a Windows XP drive".
>
>>> XP will not recognize it, no driver letter appears when I connect it via USB cable.
>>> It only shows up in Control Panel, Device Manager and there only as a USB, from which I have found no way to format it.
>>>
>>> I've tried every trick in the book but nothing works.
> Since you are starting off using WindowsXP, there is almost always
> just _bound_ to be an extra USB port and/or an optical drive (i.e., a
> CD/DVD drive) on your device for the purposes booting a Linux distro
> from live media. If it's an extra USB port you've got (and your
> device's BIOS boot-order recognizes USB), then you'd use a bootable
> liveUSB; if it's an optical drive you've got instead of a second USB
> port, then you'd use a liveCD.
>
> You might wish to do at least these four things:
> 1) Visit a Linux live distro site such as
> - SystemRescuCD, http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage
> - The UltimateBootCD (which has Parted Magic Linux),
> http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
> - SLAX, http://www.slax.org/
> - Puppy Linux (Wary, Slacko, or Precise versions), http://www.puppylinux.com/
> - Knoppix, http://www.knoppix.org/
> - plenty of other live distros just as good...
>
> .. and then download to your hard drive, the .iso image file of one or
> more of these.
>
> 2a) If you are Yes able to boot from a liveUSB through re-ordering
> your device's BIOS, then download and install to WindowsXP the YUMI
> Multiboot USB Creator --
> http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/ -- to create
> a working liveUSB from the .iso image(s) you downloaded from above. Of
> course, you would need an extra and empty USB drive of sufficient
> capacity for this multiboot liveUSB to work.
>
> 2b) If you are UNable to boot from any liveUSB through changing the
> boot order of your device's BIOS, then you'd need to burn one or more
> of the .iso image files you downloaded from above onto separate blank
> CDs using a Writeable CD/DVD drive. If using WindowsXP for this, you
> might need to additionally install image-writing software such as
> CDBurnerXP, ImgBurn, DeepBurner, ...etcetera, assuming you don't have
> something suitable for this already installed.
>
> 3) You'd boot up your device with your liveUSB (or liveCD is
> necessary) inserted, and make sure in your BIOS boot-order that the
> liveUSB or liveCD boots 1st before the WindowsXP HD does. Once a boot
> menu for the live media comes up, you should take the default
> selection (take the choice of booting into Parted Magic if using
> UBCD). If the default menu selection somehow doesn't work, then
> depending upon the Linux distro, you might have to reboot and then
> choose another boot menu selection.
>
> 4) Once booting w/ a working Linux live desktop, the next steps are to
> insert your X USB HD into a free USB port and then use the Linux
> distro's utilities to diagnose and maybe repartition and reformat that
> X USB HD. Might have to use any of these distro's Command Line
> Interface (CLI) XTerm windows to do these tasks. Typically involved
> are the Linux CLI commands 'badblocks' (like the Windows XP CHKDSK but
> more thorough), 'fdisk', 'cfdisk', mkfs', ...etcetera. Eric's
> suggestion of using NTFS seems okay; also might want to consider using
> another fdisk/cfdisk FAT32 partition-type such as type 0B or type 0C
> and then running a complete 'mkdosfs -F 32 -cv
> /dev/<USB-partition-name-from-fdisk>'
>
>
>>> The drive is fully functional when connected to a MacBook Pro and can be
>>> formatted back and forth from MS DOS FAT 32 to OS10.5 which tells me it's working.
>>>
>>> Any suggestions?
> _Fully_ scanning this drive for any possible media errors as well as
> properly partitioning+formatting the drive (steps 1-4 above?) are
> definitely some suggestions here.
>
> Others ought to definitely step in with more and even better suggestions.
> -A
> --
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