Why can't I partition my WD Passport 750GB External HD?

harlem9

New Member
I recently formatted my 750GB WD Passport External HD to exFAT because I wanted to connect it to my PS3, but as it turns out, exFAT is not FAT32, so it didn't work....

So now, I want to partition my HD so a part of it will be FAT32 and the rest will still be exFAT. However, when I used Vista's disk management thingy, I can't partition it at all, it's just one HUGE block of around 697.98 GB, and I've only used around 250GB of space on it, so there's more than 450GB of space left, but why can't I partition it?! I tried using EASEUS Partition Master, but to no avail as well... Attached is a picture of my situation, the H drive is my external HD...

I hope I don't need to reformat my HD again, cause moving 250 GB of things around takes a LOOOONG time! Please help me out guys!!!

moz-screenshot.png
 

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Unfortunately, I followed that link to everyplace it led and ultimately it is not free - the price I saw was $159 (though I'm suspect you can possibly do better if you shop for it - it is shareware, not freeware - the download is free but if you want to use and keep the product you have to pay for it). It will probably do the trick clean and easy. If you are willing to pay the price, this is possibly the safest option. The next option is also safe and I'd try that first as it's easy and quick to verify (it either will or won't work). The remaining options are somewhat more risky and you will need to move the data. The main issue with those options is that I'm not 100% certain we can restore the drive to the status you want (pretty sure - almost sure - but not completely sure). The decision is entirely yours.

Let's try a different approach. I notice the partition is marked active. Please right click on the partition and see if you can uncheck the box making it active. That may allow the partition software you have to work properly. This is by no means a guarantee (and almost just a guess), but it's worth a try as it's simple to do (if it can be done) and an easy answer (if it actually works).

If that doesn't work, try the partitioning software recommended below by Lottiemansion and see if that does the job. From what he says, it should work with all these different types including exFAT. If you can partition the exFAT drive, then you should be able to format the new partition without the data as FAT32 and you're good to go.

If that doesn't work and no partition software will partition an exFAT drive, check out the following article: exFAT conversion issue and exFAT vs FAT32 vs NTFS - DATA RECOVERY SALON. It explains that the only way to convert exFAT to FAT32 is to re-format - which means moving the data even though you wanted to avoid that (and you need to be careful about file sizes as well as FAT32 won't handle anything over 4GB). Of course, if this is done, then you still need to partition the FAT32 drive and then re-format the partition you want as exFAT and move back the data. I'm assuming the partition software you have will work better if it is a FAT32 partition than an exFAT partition. That should do the trick (I think) though I'm not entirely certain how to re-format the part of the FAT32 partition you want as exFAT back to an exFAT partition (but if you already did it once for the drive, then I assume you already know how to do that and it should work just as well for a partition assuming you can reformat FAT32 to exFAT which is what I imagine you did the first time).

If that doesn't work, you may want to try formatting the drive to NTFS first, partitioning it, re-formatting one partition as FAT32 and the other as exFAT (if the system allows such changes or provides the options to make these changes - I've never done this so I'm not completely certain it is possible but it seems likely). If you try this, then the risk is entirely yours as I cannot guarantee the results.

I hope this helps.

Good luck!
 
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    SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC
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Lorien,

Yes I am!

I've used it for all formats listed & each one is recognised in Vista 32 bit (My system).
 

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    ASUS NVIDIA Geforce GTS450
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    Realtek High Definition 7.1 Audio (HP drivers)
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    HP w2408 24.0" (Dual monitor)
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    1920 * 1200, 1920 * 1200
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    3*500 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
    Plus 2x USB (160Gig each) external HDD
    BluRay & DVD Weiters
    HL-DT-ST BD-RE GGW-H20L SCSI CdRom (Bluray RW) Device
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