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decker12 · 05-29-2009, 05:15 PM

Hi gang,

I used Partition Magic 8 to format an external drive as EXT3, for the intent of being able to write to it using SMB or whatnot.

I used Ext2 IFS on my XP machine, and it saw the drive, and I was able to copy files to it. Strangely, after I copied folders and files to it, both Ext2 IFS and Partition Magic told me the drive was Ext2, instead of Ext3.

Unfortunately, when I plug the drive into the PCH, it tells me that there are no files (no content available I think it said). Using the PCH to get Info on the drive told me the correct drive size and even told me the exact amount of free space left on it. I just couldn't see any of the 100+ GB worth of files and folders. I copied movie files, ISO files, music, even some pictures, and none of them could be found.

When I plugged the drive back into Windows, I was able to see all the files. I just can't see them on the PCH.

The same external drive formatted as NTFS works fine on the PCH and plays all the files (just that the drive is read-only, of course).

Any ideas what I am doing wrong or what else I can try?

TerryK · 05-30-2009, 06:49 AM

I did the same thing earlier with the same problem.

It seems there's some incompatibility between PartitionMagic's formatting and what PCH expects.
One or the other don't follow the spec.

I'll be trying GParted next as many people suggest.
The other alternative suggestion is Acronis but that showed only half of my EXT3-formatted disk as being free, so I guess that's buggy too.

decker12 · 05-30-2009, 05:15 PM

(05-30-2009 06:49 AM)TerryK Wrote: I did the same thing earlier with the same problem.

It seems there's some incompatibility between PartitionMagic's formatting and what PCH expects.
One or the other don't follow the spec.

I'll be trying GParted next as many people suggest.
The other alternative suggestion is Acronis but that showed only half of my EXT3-formatted disk as being free, so I guess that's buggy too.

I tried again and used GParted, which worked fine. I just created a bootable CD-ROM (it's about a 100mb download from the GParted site). Fairly easy to use with a decent GUI as well. Format on a 1TB drive took about 15 minutes.

However, GParted creates ext3 partitions with an inode of 256, which doesn't work with the popular IFS Drives application on Windows.

However, Ext2fsd does work, which is what I'm now using to copy files to my external drive.

In summary: Use Gparted boot disk. Format drive as EXT3. Install Ext2fsd.

EdP · 05-30-2009, 08:08 PM

If you let the NMT format it, it will create not one but three partitions (1 x swap and 2 x ext3), so unless you really know what to do, I'd suggest letting the NMT do the work for you.

decker12 · 05-30-2009, 08:37 PM

(05-30-2009 08:08 PM)EdP Wrote: If you let the NMT format it, it will create not one but three partitions (1 x swap and 2 x ext3), so unless you really know what to do, I'd suggest letting the NMT do the work for you.

Unless I'm mistaken, the PCH will not format an external hard drive in this matter, only an internal hard rive.

EdP · 05-30-2009, 09:27 PM

Hang on, let me get my foot out of my mouth first Blush

You're absolutely right, I should have read the question before answering.

steagle · 09-03-2009, 06:09 AM

i have a 750gb HD that i installed in the A-110 and let the A-110 format as EXT3. i then pulled it out to use as an external HD, installed EXT2IFS, plugged in the drive, and it can't access it, asking me to format it. is the only solution to use GParted on this drive?

decker12 · 09-03-2009, 05:09 PM

(09-03-2009 06:09 AM)steagle Wrote: i have a 750gb HD that i installed in the A-110 and let the A-110 format as EXT3. i then pulled it out to use as an external HD, installed EXT2IFS, plugged in the drive, and it can't access it, asking me to format it. is the only solution to use GParted on this drive?

Back in May, after trying everything, the only way I was able to format a PCH and Windows compatible drive to EXT3 was using GParted.

As per my comments above from May:

However, GParted creates ext3 partitions with an inode of 256, which doesn't work with the popular IFS Drives application on Windows.

However, Ext2fsd does work, which is what I'm now using to copy files to my external drive.

In summary: Use Gparted boot disk. Format drive as EXT3. Install Ext2fsd.

tandlj · 10-12-2009, 07:35 AM

(09-03-2009 05:09 PM)decker12 Wrote: In summary: Use Gparted boot disk. Format drive as EXT3. Install Ext2fsd.

I tried this with an external USB hard disk that was NTFS and had data, however GParted didn't recognise and show the HDD.

As I have Ubuntu in dual boot, I will try with that - do I expect any of the problems mentioned?

Thanks, Joseph

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