Home 2023 Forums Digital DJ Gear External Hard Drive Formatting….

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  • #2582281
    Todd Oddity
    Participant

    Well first up, check how it is currently formatted. In Windows open up explorer, find my computer (if you aren’t already there) and then right click on the drive and select properties. You should see how it is formatted. On a Mac, find the drive (either on your desktop or on the left side of finder), two finger click and select get info.

    Once you know that, we’ll have a better sense of what needs to be done next. It’s worth noting here though that changing the file format of a disc will require moving all your files off of it. Formatting wipes all data.

    #2582301

    First, there is no GUARANTEED way to make this work.

    FAT32 to NTFS is pretty straightforward (tool in windows), the other way around needs an external tool like this: http://www.disk-partition.com/free-partition-manager.html

    That said, you need to make a back-up first ALWAYS! And if you are making a backup anyway, you might as well just re-format the drive, making sure it’s a clean format, then copy back the backed-up files.

    Apart from this process, I’d feel really, really uneasy if all my music sat in one, single place. So, if you can, get a second drive (minimum as large as the space currently used, doubt you have 1TB of music – and if you do you need to rethink that strategy 😀 ), make a clone (exact copy), reformat the old drive to FAT32. Then copy back the files from the new drive to the old one. CHECK if everything is there and working as expected. Finally make another clone so the new drive is also FAT32. Now you have a live copy of your music that you can immediately swap out in case of hard disk failure of your primary drive.

    #2582951
    Karlton Bethea
    Participant

    Thanks Todd and Vantage,

    I will take your advice and make a couple of back ups to be sure I don’t lose anything. And by the way Vantage, I do not have 1TB of music…yet! Thanks again!

    #2583201

    Have to look up Vantage and see if that is better than Vintage … rofl

Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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