External harddrive partition??

Camaro_87

New Member
ok i wanna get a Lacie 1tb external harddrive to use with my Nintendo Wii and also be able to use it to backup some personal files that i have on my laptop. question is the nintendo wii only reads in Fat 32 WBFS and the laptop uses NTSC is it possible to have to seperate partitions on a harddrive? or would i have to get 2 seperate drives? thanks
 
NTSC is a TV format. I think you mean NTFS ;)

Hehe, but anyway, I don't know much about formatting for Wii, but you shouldn't have any problems with the basic partitioning of the drive. Once connected to your machine, it should partition as any other drive. What OS are you running. Some older versions of Windows (XP, maybe Vista, I forget right off) destory the data when partitioning. Others can extend/shink without messing up data, but it's still a good idea to back things up. I'm not sure of programs right off, but I know Linux has some pretty good utilities built in. Then some programs like Partition Magic, but I don't think it's free :P
 
yeh thats what i meant lol!

ok so if i can do both a fat 32 partition and a ntfs partition on a hardrive both partitions will be 1TB? or would i have to split them say 500gb for fat32 and 500gb for ntfs? thanks
 
No, it'll be half and half, or whatever amounts you want. They can't add up to over the size of the drive.

Does the Wii do any special formatting to the drive? Because PC's (well most any type of computer) can read and write FAT32. Most drives come formatted in FAT32.
 
yeh the wii formats the drive itself to FAT 32 but it's a "special" version called WBFS (Wii Backup File System) and the computer can't read this i can only open the drive in a program called WBFS Manager. would i still be ok doing two partitions? or would the wii just format everything thats on there?
 
The only reason you may have problems would be if the Wii doesn't know which partition to look at. I think the 360 had some issues with partitioned drives. But on the PC end, you would be just fine. I'd say just try it. If you can, backup the drive, partition it, and see what the Wii thinks of it :P
 
ok never mind i downloaded partition magic and got it all sorted out and everything works like it should!!! thanks for all your help!
 
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You can separate the disk into two partitions for different use.

If there is some unallocated space on the disk, you can create a new FAT partition to install the Nintendo Wii.

If there isn't any unallocated space, you must reduce the partition to spare out some one. Windows Disk Management tool cannot do this but a free tool can slove it easily. here is a guide: http://www.partition-tool.com/resource/repartition-hard-drive.htm
 
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