This sort of follows from my previous thread, but is really a new question.
After fiddling about at first I was able to format my new HDD. The disk is 2TB nominally, it shows up as 1863.01GB.
I would like to partition the disk into three "drives", of 600gb each, to make managing things easier. I just tried doing so with Acronis True Image, which accepted instructions to do just that, then crashed. I am now formatting the drive again, and less than impressed. Acronis successfully divided my last new HDD into 2 equal (approximately) parts, which still had to be formatted, but crashed this time. With the formatting leaving little change out of 7 hours I am reluctant to trust it again.
Presently the disk is allocated the letter I, and I want to divide it three ways and create 2 more "disks" (as My Computer sees them), J and K. Is it possible to get Windows to do this, or is a third party app required?

Hi Xero

I used Acronis for my backup it worked OK at first but then backups failed to complete.
I resolved that by contacting Acronis.
But a month or so later the backup failed again.
It concerned me that should I need said backup and it failed to restore (I never tried) it might
fail. So I changed to Paragon.
So it might worth considering changing your partition manager.
There's a freeware one called EASEUS Partition Master which supports 2TB disks
So may be worth giving it a try and will not cost you anything. It can be found here.
Best Free Partition Manager
Information Windows XP partitioning can be found here
Limitations of the FAT32 File System in Windows XP
An how to by Microsoft can be found here.
How to partition and format a hard disk by using Windows XP Setup program

Jim

Hi Jim,
I too had an Acronis backup, that when I wanted to restore it I was told I did not have the right privileges or something like that. I was slightly underwhelmed. It occurred to me later that if I had restarted in Safe mode and gone in as Administrator it may have worked. But that was way too late, I had reinstalled Windows instead.
I got through the initial muddle of how to format the drive by using help in the Computer Management section of Administrative Tools. And further investigation shows instructions for creating a new logical drive, which is what I want to do. So I may get the job done with Windows, I still have about 5% of the formatting to do before I can do anything else. Quite amazing that 7 hours could be erased so quickly.
Thanks for the links, I will definitely look at Paragon for making a drive image. Although having ERUNT has saved me from needing one on more than one occasion. It was originally recommended to me by someone on this forum, and it is the niftiest little utility app ever. I would never be without it.
But thanks again for all your suggestions, very constructive and greatly appreciated.

Hi xero

Glad you got it sorted :-)

Thanks for the update

Jim

You should be able to do what you want using Disk Management in Windows 7. Also, when you format, do a Quick format. This only takes a couple minutes compared to the 7 hours you had to wait last time.

http://www.nirmaltv.com/2009/05/12/h...-in-windows-7/

Progress, of a sort. I tried installing and using EASEUS Partition Master which refused to run on my computer. I uninstalled and got the good ole Windows "some parts could not be deleted and may be deleted manually. i would if I could find them!
I downloaded another source and got an error message during installation.
According to the help section of Computer Management I can "Right-click an unallocated region of a basic disk, and then click New Partition, or right-click free space in an extended partition, and then click New Logical Drive."
When I right click on the newly formatted drive I don't get those options. One of the ones I am offered is "Delete Partition" So the question is ... what do Microsoft mean by "unallocated"? If it means unformatted then I presume I can delete the partition, and then create my logical drives. Then format them again. Before I go down that road I would appreciate a second, learned, opinion.
And Ztruker

You should be able to do what you want using Disk Management in Windows 7

I am not using Windows 7, this is the XP section of the forum, though quick format may still be an option.

What is the make/model number of the drive.

Are you using the drive makers utility to setup the drive for windows?

Jim

My apologies xero, for some reason I thought you had a Win 7 system.

What is the status of the drive now? Is it split into two partitions of approximate equal size?

If so, I think the steps you need to take are as follows:

1. Delete the 2nd formatted but not used partition.
2. Shrink the current in use partition down to 600GB or so.
3. Combine the free space from it with the free space already available.
4. Create a new Extended partition from all the free space.
4. Create 3 600GB (or so) Logical drives in the Extended partition. That should leave you with the 4 600GB partitions you want.

DO NOT format them using the partitioning software, unless it provides a Quick Format option.

Instead, boot XP then go to Disk Management and assign a drive letter to each. I think you can do a Quick Format from there. If not, open Windows Explorer and right click on each unformatted partition and select Format. Check the Quick Format box then continue. Shouldn't take more than 2-3 minutes per partition to format that way.

I use GPartEd (Gnome Partition Editor) with XP and have never had any problems, though I've never had a 2Tb drive to work with. It's a Linux based bootable CD with a decent GUI front end.

Hi Jim, Ztruker,
The hard disk in question is a Western Digital, the model number is WD20EARS.
As to the state of it now it is one single partition of 1863.01GB, it is healthy and active.
With 1863gb I will get three partitions of 600 ish GB.

And I think I have got where I wanted to be. I removed the partition, then when I right clicked on the "unallocated?" area I was offered the option of creating a new partition. I had to define the size in MB, so a little experimentation was needed. I now have a drive labelled "I" with 615.24GB, another labelled "J" with 615.24GB, and the remaining section is labelled "K" and has 632.54GB. And that is how they appear in My Computer.
I used Quick Format as suggested by Ztruker and the job is done! Kind of begs the question of what a 7 hour formatting does that a quick format doesn't. If anything.
Thanks Jim and Ztruker, I appreciate the help.

The long format will find problems that a quick format will not, but since you had already done a long format once it was not necessary to do it again. Differences between a Quick format and a regular format during a "clean" installation of Windows XP

Glad you got it setup as you wanted. It feels good when you win!