Can I remove a partition and use my hard disk as normal? Rather long explanation... [more inside]
posted by R a c h e l on Dec 1, 2009 - 8 answers

A Windows 2000 hard disk got clobbered by the XP installer and is "unallocated". What are my next steps? [more inside]
posted by kristi on Nov 16, 2009 - 3 answers

I now own a MacBook Pro 17". And now I have some questions relating to MacOS and Windows 7, hardware upgrades and getting Applecare-on-the-cheap. [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 on Nov 11, 2009 - 19 answers

How do I safely move my iTunes library from one hard drive to another? [more inside]
posted by valleys on Sep 8, 2009 - 7 answers

What filesystem should I use on my new USB 2.0 external hard drive? It'll mostly stay attached to an Ubuntu box and be used to store large video files for streaming to playback devices on my network, but I'd also like to be able to take it to a friend's house and plug it into whatever computer they happen to have. [more inside]
posted by contraption on May 2, 2009 - 12 answers

Whats the Difference between a file system and a partition in Ubuntu? [more inside]
posted by complience on Feb 25, 2009 - 13 answers

How can I change the generic name "USB Mass Storage Device" in my Vista system tray "Safely Remove Hardware" dialog? [more inside]
posted by msbrauer on Dec 30, 2008 - 6 answers

Computer Diagnostic Help and Interpretation, Please: My son inherited an 8-year-old Dell Dimension L933r from his grandpa. It had been upgraded to Windows XP and had an additional hard drive installed. It was working smoothly for us for almost a year, but recently it went into an infinite reboot loop (which we couldn't resolve ourselves) and we took it to an independent computer repair guy (details and questions inside). [more inside]
posted by amyms on Dec 13, 2008 - 16 answers

The Windows program called Eraser fails partway through erasing unused space on my drive. Why? Or, recommend a different, free drive erasing utility? [more inside]
posted by wastelands on Nov 22, 2008 - 7 answers

Data Backup Filter: I have about 6TB (yes TB, not GB) of data. I need to back it up BEFORE it crashes. I also need a good way to share it on the network. How can I do this? Details within... [more inside]
posted by arniec on Jul 8, 2008 - 28 answers

Can anyone help with a program to show total drive space in a PC across multiple drives? [more inside]
posted by mrbenn on Mar 30, 2008 - 4 answers

I think I'm finally switching to Ubuntu on my main machine. I have two 160GB external drives, currently both with NTFS, currently mirrored (by software, not a RAID). With what and how should I format/use these guys? [more inside]
posted by tmcw on Mar 14, 2008 - 8 answers

What's the best way to erase my hard drive for resale if I don't have original OS reinstall CDs to work with? [more inside]
posted by rhoticity on Feb 29, 2008 - 13 answers

How to recover from sync-ing a RAID 1 the wrong way? [more inside]
posted by notsnot on Feb 6, 2008 - 11 answers

How do I get my PC to recognize my Apple-formatted external hard drive? [more inside]
posted by kdern on Jul 16, 2007 - 5 answers

So it's come to this - I see no other option than to ask a "help me fix my PC" question. After some troubleshooting the STOP errors seem to have been resolved, XP now boots successfully but is excruciating slow to the point of being unusable. Details and specs below the fold. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Mar 4, 2007 - 25 answers

Is there a way to get songs off of a Mac-formatted iPod in Windows? [more inside]
posted by JacksonEsquire on Feb 24, 2007 - 8 answers

Is it possible for Windows 2000/XP (or more properly, an NTFS disk volume) to "collapse" under the weight of too many files? [more inside]
posted by chef_boyardee on Feb 1, 2007 - 12 answers

Could turning on hard drive compression actually speed up access on my laptop? [more inside]
posted by Ookseer on Nov 25, 2006 - 10 answers

The new hard drive I installed on my XP machine has been having problems, and I think the problem could be directly related to a tock! tock! sound that something is making... [more inside]
posted by zardoz on Nov 10, 2006 - 6 answers

TechSupportFilter: having problems with an ata harddrive [more inside]
posted by willmillar on Aug 23, 2006 - 9 answers

How can I watch what is being written to my hard-drive? [more inside]
posted by MintSauce on May 31, 2006 - 4 answers

iPod newbie on Windows XP needs help... [more inside]
posted by Al_Truist on Jan 5, 2006 - 10 answers

My laptop's hard drive is reaching capacity. How can I install a larger hard drive without having to buy a new version of Win XP Pro (which was pre-installed on the laptop when I bought it, and IBM will no longer send me a CD-ROM version of the OS at a reasonable price, since the machine is long out of warranty). If buying a new version of XP is the only option, how do I install it on the new hard drive (or will the laptop just boot to the installation CD-ROM if there's no OS installed when the power is turned on?)
posted by twsf on Dec 27, 2005 - 16 answers

please help a mac user format a hard drive using windows. [more inside]
posted by Silky Slim on Sep 9, 2005 - 2 answers

I just received a new Acer laptop. The hard drive is 100GB, but it arrived divided into two partitions. According to the Windows XP Professional disk management window, the drive is divided as follows ... [more inside]
posted by punishinglemur on Aug 11, 2005 - 22 answers

Help me recover data off a (seemingly) dead laptop hard drive. [more inside]
posted by killdevil on Aug 2, 2005 - 5 answers

The hard drive on my fiancee's Windows machine has died, with our wedding plans, five weeks prior to our wedding. I've managed to duplicate the drive (with Unix's dd), though not without errors severe enough to prevent me from booting it. Now what? [more inside]
posted by waldo on Jul 28, 2005 - 7 answers

My girlfriend has a fairly new Dell laptop that has suddenly developed a few problems. [more inside]
posted by tomorama on Apr 24, 2005 - 12 answers

Earlier yesterday, I was about to translate into SVCD the newest episode of Doctor Who for my roommate, when I was simply unable to find the file. My media folder only shows files and folders from 0-AL, and nothing else. The funny thing is that the other files have not been deleted. When I have a direct link to a file, it plays perfectly. A direct link to a folder displays all the contents, but the folder itself doesn't appear in the root. Some investigation showed that there's a couple of bad sectors on the disk. Any suggestions so that I can get the main directory back, if only to make a backup of everything in case of a possible crash? [more inside]
posted by Pinwiz on Apr 18, 2005 - 6 answers

Locally mounting physical Mac OS X drives/volumes in a Windows machine? [more inside]
posted by loquacious on Mar 30, 2005 - 4 answers

SoftwareRAID0AndCan'tLogInToWindowsXPFilter: My userinit.exe is gone after a routine Windows update, and I can't use the recovery console or a boot disk to access my hard drives [+] [more inside]
posted by tumult on Feb 14, 2005 - 7 answers

I've just bought a Lacie 160 gigabyte firewire drive. It's to be plugged into a Windows XP machine, but also to be written to and read by a Mac OSX machine. I want to format it with the FAT32 file system, but Windows won't let me. Is there a way to force the drive to format as FAT32? [More inside...] [more inside]
posted by skylar on Oct 28, 2004 - 5 answers

WindowsXP, 250 gig shared backup hard drive, and a lab full of people with sensitive information that needs to be backed up on said drive but shouldn't be accessible by anyone other than the user who put it there. Security is giving me fits and I'd appreciate some helpful advice. [more gory details inside] [more inside]
posted by caution live frogs on Sep 13, 2004 - 5 answers

I have a new 160 gig HD that I partitioned into two drives. One of the partitions is exclusively for mp3s. Unfortunately, when I open the drive, XP treats it as a "My Pictures" folder. How do I change it to a "My Music" folder? Ordinarily, I'd go Properties>Customize, but when I go Properties on the root folder, I get hard drive properties. (General / Tools / Hardware / etc.)
posted by keswick on Aug 28, 2004 - 3 answers

Having trouble setting up 2 SATA hard drives as a stripe set in WinXP Pro. (more inside) [more inside]
posted by Ynoxas on Aug 23, 2004 - 4 answers

Yet another boring tech question: my main hard drive died on me. It's a Seagate, so I ran their diagnostic tool and it tells me I have 2 critical structure errors. What does this mean? Is there a way to fix it, or do I have to reformat, or worse, toss it out? Vielen Dank!
posted by muckster on Aug 20, 2004 - 9 answers

IDE hard drive conundrum: "Error loading OS" (more inside) [more inside]
posted by luser on Jul 6, 2004 - 13 answers

Would installing a new (smallish) hard drive in my machine and dedicating it solely to the Windows swap file (i.e., instead of having it on C:) improve performance?
posted by oissubke on Jun 26, 2004 - 13 answers

Can I access a Windows 2000 formatted hard drive in an external hard drive enclosure with an Apple computer? [m-to-the-i] [more inside]
posted by plemeljr on May 25, 2004 - 8 answers

I just did a full WinXP reinstall. In the process, I took an 80 gig drive which was partitioned to 10/30/40 gig partitions and repartitioned it to 10/10/20/15/25 partitions. Unfortunately, that 40 gig partition held my "My Documents" holding a bunch of Word documents spanning the years and a lot of digital photos that are irreplaceable.

I've tried a few file recovery programs with limited success (recovered around 20% of my files) however I think the problem is the repartitions have split a lot of the files across two or more partitions. Is there a way I can recombine these partitions and try the file recovery programs again??
posted by PWA_BadBoy on Apr 21, 2004 - 3 answers

I'm a Mac head formatting a partition on my Windows 2000 Prof box - What's the difference between NTFS and Fat32? Which should I choose?
posted by jalexei on Mar 12, 2004 - 8 answers

I have 100GB and 160GB hard drives in my XP computer. I tried using Norton Ghost to move the 100GB info to my latter drive, and it worked but with serious partition errors (windows not booting). I then moved a large amount of data to my 160, the 100 not really having changed. Everything in windows functions, but when I use Partition Magic 8 I get the following error: "Disk 1 appears to have partitions created using a different drive geometry (255h 63s original, 240h 63 current) You should back up...." etcetera. More inside. [more inside]
posted by Keyser Soze on Mar 7, 2004 - 2 answers

Windows XP question... My parents computer is set up that most items are stored on a 20 GB harddrive (or possibly a partition- listed as c:) while they have 100 GB available on d:... When I install software, is it perfectly acceptable to run it off the D drive, and is there a way to switch the set up so most items save to the d drive? [more inside]
posted by drezdn on Feb 23, 2004 - 8 answers

I have a WinXp machine with three hard drives, each one holding 100GB. I'm researching backup alternatives, and there are tons these days (tape drives, external firewire drives, jazz drives, etc.). I'd like to find a solution that strikes a nice balance between ease of use, cost and durability. Any suggestions?
posted by grumblebee on Jan 8, 2004 - 8 answers