Hacking partitioning and stuff

[pigii]

okay i have a 320GB western digital my passport hard drive coming tommorow in the mail ;D
yay me

however im wanting to use wiiflow as its awesome, ive downloaded the necessary files and also have a copy of partitionmagic
can someone detail to me how i'd partition this? or is it simple to do, also is this classed as "removable storage" as i've heard partitoionmagic doesnt detect removable storage
i tried this out on an old USB memory stick and it didnt work

couldnt get a partition made...
so thanks to anyone who can help

also, some sizes which i should partition to would be good im kinda confused about this

 

[Szalkow]

What operating system do you have? You'll only need Partition Magic with Windows XP...

I have heard complaints about some versions of Symantec Partition Magic not working with all removable drives. There's no way to know until your drive arrives.

Partitioning is relatively simple; you tell your partition manager to make a new partition and then you can format it to whatever you need. It's like having two hard drives in one disk.

How big you want your partition depends on how many games you plan on having on your drive and what other files you plan on storing on there. A typical game in WBFS is about 2-2.5 GB, so you can fit 100+ games on your drive if you use the whole thing. How much space you want is up to you. I have a 150 GB WBFS partition for games (about 65 games total) and 350 GB for storing movies and music for use in MPlayer.

If making multiple partitions, IMPORTANT: order of partitions does matter. Make your WBFS partition the SECOND partition on the drive. Non-WBFS apps like MPlayer can only read a partition if it's the first one on the disk.

 

[pigii]

ahh thank you so much, yes im on XP
how do i tell what order the partitions are in?
also whats the difference between FAT, FAT32 and NTFS?
im thinking i'll have 20GB FAT and 300GB WBFS

, im also wondering why you never get quite the full size of your hard drive when it comes? can you help with that? is there anyway to maximize the space on the drive?

 

[fatherjack]

@pigii re: partitioning (in XP)

control panel > administrative tools > computer management > storage > disk management

this will show the status of all connected drives (incl. your WD when u connect it)
simply right click and 'delete partition' then same and make a new one

as szalkow said - first one should be made and formatted FAT32 - whatever size you need.
Then right click the rest of the space and make full sized partition of whats left on drive, this can be formatted in WBFS manager for backups.

 

[pigii]

thanks fatherjack
ive tried this method with my USB memory stick thing and the delete partition was greyed out, im hoping it'll work on the new HDD but does anyone know why this could be?

 

[jazvdb]

ahh thank you so much, yes im on XP
how do i tell what order the partitions are in?
also whats the difference between FAT, FAT32 and NTFS?
im thinking i'll have 20GB FAT and 300GB WBFS

, im also wondering why you never get quite the full size of your hard drive when it comes? can you help with that? is there anyway to maximize the space on the drive?

Not precisely - you are getting 320 billion bytes, as advertised.

It's just that computers calculate GB as 1024 MB, not 1000 like the rest of the world. Computer GB are calculated in binary, not base 10. 1024 bytes in a KB, 1024 KB in a Mb, 1024 MB in a GB means that the difference between the decimal (SI) representation and the binary representation is about 7%

320,000,000,000 bytes = 320 GB (decimal) = 298 GB (binary) which is what is your computer displays 320 billion bytes as.

And not just hard drives, look at your iPod again, it's not actually the advertised size...


(NOTE: I did not write that >.>)

 

[Szalkow]

thanks fatherjack
ive tried this method with my USB memory stick thing and the delete partition was greyed out, im hoping it'll work on the new HDD but does anyone know why this could be?

This is because, despite having the same disk management interface as Vista, XP cannot fully resize partitions on its own, while Vista can. Stick with PartitionMagic, or search around for a free partitioning program if PM doesn't work.

And yes, keep in mind that a 320 GB hard drive will only have about 300 GB of actual usable space. If you really want a data (FAT) partition, make sure it's big enough for what you need, because resizing either partition after you've got your WBFS drive loaded up requires you to wipe and start over.

This guide uses an older version of PartitionMagic but may still be of use:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/hard_drives_05.htm

 

[cloud33092]

check this thread ---> http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=179085
scroll down to where it say "Extra for USB loaders"
open the hidden text that says "HOW TO CREATE PARTITIONS (WINDOWS) (show)"

google "EASEUS Partition Master" and down the home edition for free.. link is dead in the guide

Finished partitioning my 1TB WD hdd
650gb for fat32 and 300gb for wbfs
- works smoothly also the guide is easy to follow with the pictures

 

[Skizzo]

Why all the recommendations for additional software when Windows Disk Management can do everything he needs? The only reason he'd need additional software is if he wanted a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB. Everyone seems to like to make things as complicated or time consuming as possible around here, like when they tell people who want to put their already burned backup DVD games onto WBFS to create an .iso with ImgBurn and then use that with a WBFS app, instead of simply telling them to use a WBFS app that can do it directly from the DVD inserted into their PC. Jeez...

@pigii, just follow fatherjack's advice as he seems to be the only one who follows the KISS principle.

And I'm not sure what a 'typical' game is for the Wii, but their sizes range all over the map, many much smaller or bigger than the 2-2.5GB suggested. There are lists you can consult.

 

[Thang_Bom]

Could you tell me what WBFS can create file directly from DVD? I am currently using WBFS Manager v3.0 and I dont think I have that option.

thnx.

Also is it truth that you can only have 500 file maximum on WBFS system?

Why all the recommendations for additional software when Windows Disc Management can do everything he needs? The only reason he'd need additional software is if he wanted a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB. Everyone seems to like to make things as complicated or time consuming as possible around here, like when they tell people who want to put their already burned backup DVD games onto WBFS to create an .iso with ImgBurn and then use that with a WBFS app, instead of simply telling them to use a WBFS app that can do it directly from the DVD inserted into their PC. Jeez...

@pigii, just follow fatherjack's advice as he seems to be the only one who follows the KISS principle.

And I'm not sure what a 'typical' game is for the Wii, but their sizes range all over the map, many much smaller or bigger than the 2-2.5GB suggested. There are lists you can consult.

 

[Skizzo]

Could you tell me what WBFS can create file directly from DVD? I am currently using WBFS Manager v3.0 and I dont think I have that option.

thnx.

Also is it truth that you can only have 500 file maximum on WBFS system?

I see you already found the other thread, but for anyone else, a WBFS app to do direct DVD (backups) to WBFS can be found here http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=184...t&p=2320525

If you have any problems, read the thread for possible solutions (like the ???WII???? displaying, instead of TITLE ID, NAME and SIZE).

As for the 500 file maximum, I don't know. I'm only ~ 3/5 of the way there.