formatting external firewire HD

[jip]

Greetings

I've just bought a firewire external drive and am having
problems setting it up the way I want, and wonder if anyone can help please?

Using XPs Computer Management I can create partitions perfectly OK, but when it comes to formatting, I'm not offered any options other than NTFS. Same lack of
alternatives if I try to format the drive/partitions by right clicking in Windows Explorer and choosing format. But if I use the same processes and make as if I wanted to format one of my internal drives, I'm offered NTFS or
FAT32.

Now, I actually want to end up with two partitions - one NTFS formatted, and one FAT32. The reason being I want to use the NTFS partition to store an image of my PC, and the FAT32 partition to backup stuff from my wife's iMac. iMacs can see and save to FAT32 partitions, but not (as far as
I can tell) to NTFS.

So, anyone any ideas/explanations why I'm not getting an option to format in FAT32? Any other solutions?

 

[RobD]

There's a size limit with FAT32, although for the life of me I can't remember what it is. That's why you can't format the entire drive using FAT32. It's too big. Easiest solution is to repartition the drive to your desired specification and then format the two partitions in the way you want.

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