Can't See External Drive In Partition Management

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smoothieusa
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Mar 19, 2013 5:03 am

Can't See External Drive In Partition Management

Post by smoothieusa »

I am not technically inclined and not an IT guy so would appreciate help and suggestions with BootIt Bare Metal. I have read the Before You Begin guide, install instructions and watched the videos. My computer is running Windows 7 64 Bit on the internal NTFS drive and I have a USB connected FAT32 formatted external drive with 4 partitions.

Objective: Realign FAT32 partitions on external hard drive from 512 kb to 4096K cluster size (4k boundary) in each allocation unit.

Problem: I am not seeing my external hard drive or its 4 partitions (G, H, I, AND H drives) in BootIt Bare Metal (BIBM) Partition Management.

My ultimate goal is to get back the security tabs under Properties for each of the 4 partitions on my IOGEAR external drive. Before doing that, I read on another web site it is necessary (or should) convert the partitions from FAT32 to NTFS. Before converting to NTFS, I also read that the partitions should first be realigned by moving all the data area up to a 4k boundary. The person recommending realigning the partitions recommended using BootIt Next Generation but I see it has been updated to BIBM. His partition realignment instructions using BING are:

1. "Download the BOOTITNG.zip file to its own folder, extract the contents of the ZIP file, then run BOOTITNG.EXE which will make a bootable floppy." I did that except I downloaded BIBM, extracted the contents, and did step 1 of the installation process by running MakeDisk and using a USB flash drive. I selected the USB mode but might have made a mistake by choosing "Partition" instead of "Normal".

2. "Boot this floppy." So I shut down the computer and inserted the USB drive into a USB hub and restarted the computer.

3. "For purposes of Partition Management, there is no need toinstall the program to install the program ot hard disk so click Cancel Install, thus entering Maintenance." I can do that no problem.

4. "Click Partition Work." I can do that.

5. "Highlight the partition you intend to convert." Here is where I run into a problem. The internal hard drive C and its partitions are in the Partition Work drop-down box. However, the external drive although powered up and its 4 partitions are not listed. Therefore, I cannot proceed to the next instruction which is -

6. Click Slide, which has an option check box to Align for NTFS only. Click OK." Haven't gotten this far because in step 5 I can't see the G, H, I, and J partitions on the external drive.

What do I need to do to in order see my external drive partitions G, H, I, and J in Partition Management drop down box so that I can change cluster size from 512 bytes to 4096K?

Thank you.
TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Can't See External Drive In Partition Management

Post by TeraByte Support »

It would be the same issue as
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=251

Once you see it in BootIt Bare Metal there is now an "align" button to do
it. Highlight your FAT/FAT32 partition, click align.

"smoothieusa" wrote in message news:4966@public.bootitbm...

I am not technically inclined and not an IT guy so would appreciate help and
suggestions with BootIt Bare Metal. I have read the Before You Begin guide,
install instructions and watched the videos. My computer is running Windows
7 64 Bit on the internal NTFS drive and I have a USB connected FAT32
formatted external drive with 4 partitions.

Objective: Realign FAT32 partitions on external hard drive from 512 kb to
4096K cluster size (4k boundary) in each allocation unit.

Problem: I am not seeing my external hard drive or its 4 partitions (G, H,
I, AND H drives) in BootIt Bare Metal (BIBM) Partition Management.

My ultimate goal is to get back the security tabs under Properties for each
of the 4 partitions on my IOGEAR external drive. Before doing that, I read
on another web site it is necessary (or should) convert the partitions from
FAT32 to NTFS. Before converting to NTFS, I also read that the partitions
should first be realigned by moving all the data area up to a 4k boundary.
The person recommending realigning the partitions recommended using BootIt
Next Generation but I see it has been updated to BIBM. His partition
realignment instructions using BING are:

1. "Download the BOOTITNG.zip file to its own folder, extract the contents
of the ZIP file, then run BOOTITNG.EXE which will make a bootable floppy."
I did that except I downloaded BIBM, extracted the contents, and did step 1
of the installation process by running MakeDisk and using a USB flash drive.
I selected the USB mode but might have made a mistake by choosing
"Partition" instead of "Normal".

2. "Boot this floppy." So I shut down the computer and inserted the USB
drive into a USB hub and restarted the computer.

3. "For purposes of Partition Management, there is no need toinstall the
program to install the program ot hard disk so click Cancel Install, thus
entering Maintenance." I can do that no problem.

4. "Click Partition Work." I can do that.

5. "Highlight the partition you intend to convert." Here is where I run into
a problem. The internal hard drive C and its partitions are in the
Partition Work drop-down box. However, the external drive although powered
up and its 4 partitions are not listed. Therefore, I cannot proceed to the
next instruction which is -

6. Click Slide, which has an option check box to Align for NTFS only. Click
OK." Haven't gotten this far because in step 5 I can't see the G, H, I, and
J partitions on the external drive.

What do I need to do to in order see my external drive partitions G, H, I,
and J in Partition Management drop down box so that I can change cluster
size from 512 bytes to 4096K?

Thank you.

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