Wasn't sure where I should post this question. In the windows or linux section. Since I want to go from Linux to Windows I'll ask here. I have a 500GB external HD that had been formatted to work with a freeview (linux based) box. I would like to go back to using it with windows vista. But when I connected it, vista recognizes that it's there, but I can't access it. I have to option to "safely remove hardware" but I can't figure out with drive it's on. Went into "My Computer" but it's not there. I'm not sure if I need to reformat it in order to use it with vista or is it another issue? Any help is much appreciated. Thanks.
You can do this a few different ways. first you right click on my computer in windows and select manage. Then you select disk management. You should find the hard drive here and now you can reformat it to ntfs or fat32. You could also do it under linux. If you have gparted installed just open it up and select the drive from the pull down menu. Then delete the old partition and now make a new fat32 partition. I don't think you can format ntfs with gparted but if you do fat32 then connect it to windows you can then see the drive and reformat to ntfs.
Just found another way around formatting it! I was able to go > Start > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Device Management and format it. Thanks for your reply.
Scum, Don't want to discourage you, but Windows people who have never used a DOS command line haven't a clue what a command-line interface is. This is no reflection on the OP, who was clever in finding a purely Microsoft solution at no cost or effort. It instead is a comment on how Microsoft and, to some degree, Apple have limited the imagination of people, let then know what's possible and what isn't, and taught them that the salesman is the final authority. Let's face it: very few people are going to press a button and create a LiveCD of GNU/Linux, which does (to them) impossible things. As the CDC engineer who looked at the ETA-10 in its liquid nitrogen bath said, 'Yes, but will it run MS-DOS?'. Friends who were impressed with my old Macs just replaced their Windows computers with the latest iMacs. Both have advanced degrees from Ivy League colleges; one is a retired professor. The professor panicked when his CMOS battery was running low, fearing the loss of all his previous data. I told him GNU/Linux, and probably 'Snow' would access his drive without knowing CHS numbers, which he could get from the drive model anyway. I gave a link to buy an emergency bridge to a USB bus. He didn't believe it possible. Microsoft required CHS values. So, I suggested keeping his computer running, for his ROM was already copied to RAM. Then, copy his Windows data to his Mac by one of a dozen means. He didn't believe me, for when your CMOS battery dies, you can't access your machine. So, I suggested he place 'Thunderbird' on his iMac and have it import his 'Outlook Express' data over the internet, a USB cable, a piece of ethernet, and even piece of phone wire. He didn't believe any of it was possible. Finally, when I heard he had a USB flash drive, I suggested he copy everything to it. This he did, for he had done this with other Microsoft files. Microsoft said it was possible. Then I suggested he remove his old drive, place it in an inexpensive, spiffy aluminum case, and use it with the repugnant 'Time Capsule', as his backup drive. Neither believed such a thing possible: he had an internal drive, didn't I understand? His wife insisted financial data be purged from the disk. I suggested using MacOSX to 'zero' the disk. No, it was a Windows disk, and Microsoft has no re-initialization application. This wasn't possible. Macs & MS were incompatible. Then I gave them the proper 'dd' command (yes, I was at that point) to re-initialize his drive before giving it to a collegue. He didn't know what 'that funny looking line' meant. Considering me mad, he literally took a sledge hammer to his drive. Then he bought an 'Apple' drive. When Apple told them they didn't provide printer drivers, so seek his printer company's website, I told him to click the button 'CUPS', and gave detailed instructions on installing any of four different sets of drivers for all his printers. The salesman didn't suggest this, so he threw all old, expensive printers in the garbage, taking Apple's advice to buy a new, tiny, inferior printer. Finally, when I advised him to install an office suite that would read proprietary Windows formats and export them as standard formats that Apple Mail, for example, could work with, he didn't believe this possible. Taking Apple's advice, he bought a very expensive Snow Leopard with Windows (and all its malware vulnerabilities), so he could run all his favorite Windows XP applications, such as Outlook Express, on his new iMac. When I explained to his wife that none of the above was necessary, she understood. However, a friend (who has never heard of any standard format, such as CSV) will be distributing a spreadsheet in Excel format; so she, too, is going to install Windows on her Mac. An Excel file needs Excel. Finally, they both complained to me about the price of new disk drives, printers, Windows on their Macs, Microsoft Office, and other such things. Why hadn't I warned them these would be needed? Some Windows users have long been trained by Microsoft to know what is possible and what is not. Most have never seen a command line. This may account for the lack in popularity of GNU/Linux. The average computer user has been trained by long habit to think exactly how Microsoft wants them to. Ironically, my friends had switched to Macs because my computer wasn't the target of all the spyware, adware, and viruses theirs acquired. Their Macs are now. :-( Gneiss
tough titty.. windows idiots shouldn't post in the linux area anyway.. I assume they KNOW how their useless proprietary shite works.. which is WHY I don't help them formatting to M$ proprietary formats. FYI .. under the pretty crap MS and apple dress up their formatting tools with guess what.. oh yes.. cfdisk.. it's a basic gui partition/format tool.. stock for about 20 years. you want to lecture to and help these morons.. fine.. but take them into the windows problems areas to do it.. If they know squat they shouldn't have computers in the first damn place.. eh? .. remember when we started out 30 years ago?.. no internet to come whining to for help then.. oh no.. the library or the readme files that came with the tapes.. hehehehe Anyway.. I just had a drive corrupt and lose me 300 gigs of data.. not impressed at all. and before anybody offers "helpful suggestions" .. it's gone.. I have been there before with this particular file system.. and it's gone. Not nice when a backup fileserver screws up while running. why won't this bloody email die? .. it died before xmas right in the middle of helping somebody with a REAL problem.. not a noob without much in the way of look before ask skills.. stop spoonfeeding them and they MIGHT learn something!
But you and i both know it doesn't work that way. Not everyone is computer literate, and a lot never will be. This is where you and I differ, i grew up with and under people who "couldn't suffer fools" ie those who couldn't tolerate anyone with less knowledge than them. I have never subscribed to this mindset and never will (I do however sort of understand the mindset but am glad i don't possess it), if anything me having to suffer under people with said mindsets made me more determined to do well in computers, and be able to be forgiving of those with less knowledge than me (and don't forget there's always someone who knows more than us) but i'm in the minority. It's the same with managing/supervising people, i didn't like the way quite a few of my peers (mis)managed things and people (this was from when i first started work), so i guess i subconciously made it my business to be a good supervisor/manager and good at handling work situations. Good job really as all the above did me well, for instance managing a shift in an international commercial bank, i even had one senior boss above me who took exception to the way i didn't 'flap' under pressure (he actually said all this with a straight face), so i just told him straight that running around like a headless chicken was not the way to do things (ie that was his way) and that i would continue to not 'flap'. I am human though so i've mishandled my share of things but i i'm not proud of those things, i prefer to think about the things i did well, (like teaching myself Unix, but i concede that there's always people who will know more than me, it's a massive subject). Now if only i could actually get a new Unix job. Oh hang on the banks destroyed the economy To sum up, I do sometimes have trouble explaining/teaching things to non-techies but that's only as my geek to English converter needs more practice
My attitude is completely in line with Creaky's; and our experiences seem to have been remarkably similar. However, I'm a research petrologist: consulting about computers was just to fill-in between real jobs. No inappropriate posts that I know of. My comments were not complaints: they were examples of how things have changed since PCs were introduced. Initially, Microsoft tried its best to keep a knowledge of how computers work from those who needed this knowledge as a tool. Remember the DOS manual? Closed source, proprietary everything. The purpose of Unix 7, at the same time, was just the opposite. However, only mathematical scientists who programmed scientific (ie, free) software needed Unix as a tool. What I found fascinating was that, rather than remaining completely in the dark, intelligent people learned exactly and only what Microsoft permitted them to learn. After 30 years, my note above was to illustrate how well Microsoft users have learned, whether intended or not, what Microsoft taught them; but not about how computers work. My friends knew my background. What I described was akin to a theory that intelligent people formed to explain a black box; a theory that worked for 30 years. My helping was akin to someone approaching to a 19th Century physicist and saying "Let's solve your problem, based on the assumption that time and space are not independent." My suggestions so went against what Microsoft had taught (purposefully or not), they just couldn't accept any suggestions. They flew in the face of their theory. I think that's a fascinating social phenomenon; and very clearly not a healthy one. However, I'll continue to offer suggestions to those who ask: computers are only tools to me, like a car; and I don't think people need to be mechanics to operate them. Something has made that very difficult. People are forced to use Microsoft at work, and naturally choose it as a tool during off hours, because they know how to make the 'black box' do what they want. I can understand that, dreadful mistake that it is. The irony is thick: they switched to Snow Leopard (which has excellent security) to protect their personal identities from internet theft. Note how they smashed the disk. They were excited when I offered to close a spyware storage place created for web servers and for FlashPlaer. Now one's OS is like swiss cheese. I'll try and keep the other iMac clean. Gneiss PS. The best way to create a FAT32 file system is with a Microsoft utility; and the best way to create and HFS+ file system is with an Apple utility. I believe Debian's 'fdisk' even says this in its manual page. Apple I have few objections to. Microsoft, besides being a criminal empire opposed to all I hold dear, purposely held computing back about 20 years, well behind where academic engineers had taken it. The new Macs and even Nintendo have changed all that.
To make my point extra clear, I worked my way through school with various jobs, from auto mechanic to secretary. When applying for secretarial jobs (50 wpm touch typist), I was often turned down because I couldn't use computers. That is, I had never used Microsoft Word, so didn't know what buttons to press to make it work. Therefore I was told to learn something about computing before applying for office work. This was after I had spent years using at least a dozen other word processors, and had designed and programmed several networked computing systems for law offices and other small businesses. A 'knowledge of computing' means knowing what buttons to press on a particular Microsoft Windows program. This isn't a healthy social phenomenon. Gneiss
You highlighted something important that i forgot to mention, Microsoft. Microsoft and it's dumbing down of society (not having a pop at the OP when i say that btw, just at Microsoft). It's a shame we can't rewind the years and see what computing would be like now without their influence of things, i'd wager that it would all be very different today (yes maybe 20 years ahead of where we are now, had never thought of it that way), i can identify with this as i spent my early years with Mainframes at work and Microsoft at home, then Unix/linux 10 years ago at work and Microsoft/linux at home in that same period. I have 'Windows only' friends/colleagues (who are very intelligent btw), but they always have better career prospects/opportunities than me because they use Microsoft. Can i easily learn the bits of Microsoft that i don't know, hell yes. Can i get a job, hell no, i don't have any official Microsoft know-how in a work sense. Anyways, i don't mean to 'burst into song' with stuff not relevant to the OP's problem, am just airing my frustration, the job market in my line of work is decimated, yet i'd probably be back in work by now if i could show that i can use a mouse in Microsoft products .
Yes, I remember being puzzled by job ads that didn't say 'word processor' or 'spreadsheet', but listed the brand one needed years of experience with. (?) Don't mean to troll, so I'll just make this one post about computing and stop. There is a difference between something being difficult and being complicated. Microsoft users perceive computing as being very difficult (a great mystery), but not complicated (though far more than KDE, GNOME, or a Mac). In fact, computing is actually simple, but very complicated (ameliorated by manual pages). Physicians & attorneys were brought to tears in the 80s because they though the DOS Reference Manual would explain their computer; I had to tell them that, if they were given the problem of automating solutions and a handful of transistors, they would invent the same hardware & software before them. (I used to log into a Unix mainframe from a paper teletype machine, because Unix always ran a process to 'get tty' logins.) Computers' buses, gateways, caches, and storage seem very anthropomorphic. Scum's solution to formatting a drive is really the simplest, meant for those who understand computers. The 'shell' organization of Linux moves outward from transistors to an image of a letter on a monitor, where typing an 'e' sets off a commonly used tree of commands closer and closer to the hardware, coordinated by the operating system. People who see computers as simple but complicated drop down to one of these deeper commands to do something close to the hardware, like formatting a disk. I keep an 8 GB flash drive around for I know not what, usually carrying large photos between computers. However, if my granddaughter's little 'Aslan' (Slinky) is running slowly, I pop it into the USB port, then use the command line to issue a little script to run in the background. The script re-initializes the flash drive, slices it into four 2 GB partitions, marks each as swap, and tells Linux they're available. Many simpler methods are available. (Debian Linux pages virtual memory to these spaces.) Though it may sound complicated, the elegant organization of Linux and the concept of one simple command doing one simple thing allows one to just use manual pages to remember the details. Unlike Microsoft's teaching of more key presses and menus with time, Linux teaches the 'gestalt' of how your computer works with time. This, to me, is a tremendous difference between a 'black box' and a transparent one. However, people would have know what they were paying for. When the scheduler on the free Unix had been tweaked by hundreds of academic papers on it, Windows 3.0 devoted half its time to DOS, and divided the other half equally among Windows applications. 'Hey, the process scheduler is done. Plunk.'
