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How Do I Format (2) 500 GIG HDs Together as 1 TB


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#1
Charliee03

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I've got 2 500 GIG hard drives, same exact maker for each, and there in a duo external enclosure I've connected it to Windows and under disk manager its showing up as 2 seperate hard drives, How (Is) there anyway to format both of them together?

BTW:

The enclosure has 1 USB cord to connect both drives

Edited by Charliee03, 25 December 2007 - 11:28 PM.

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#2
Neil Jones

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It is possible but it depends exactly on the hardware that you've purchased.
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#3
Charliee03

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How do I go about trying to format them together though?
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#4
Neil Jones

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If it is possible, it'll be described how to do so in the manual.
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#5
Highl0w

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U want to marry them. This is not the simpleist task, if you did not know what to do to make them one drive. then you will need to do some homework. U will need a desktop pc, a linux boot disk "they are free just look", Some basic hardware knowledge. And a few command lines later you have two drives working as one. "but why"?

Do your homework! I just found this site but something tells me if you use that search tab. Type marry drives, You may come up with something. If not Google it.
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#6
pyrocajun2707

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What you're talking about is probably RAID or JBOD. I reccommend reading up on how to do RAID configurations.

Read up on doing RAID arrays, especially if your main concern is performance, in which case you would do a RAID0 configuration. Make sure your motherboard supports RAID, though.
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#7
dsenette

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actually...with NTFS you can format both drives while they're in the enclosure as NTFS without making a partition of volume on the disk, then convert the partitions to dynamic partitions (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309044) once you've got the disks as dynamic you can create a logical volume that would span both disks...once you do that they will appear in "my computer" as a single volume (or drive letter)

HOWEVER if you do this you can't use these disks on any other system (negating the portability of the enclosure)

Edit: oh...and pyrocajun (the last person to post to this thread before me)...i'm originally from Franklin LA (about 15 to 20 minutes east of you)......and we've got a couple other swamp rats running around here (some specifically from new iberia)
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#8
hfcg

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even though you have two physical drives they can be partitioned in to one logical drive. (with XP) I will have to look this up at home later so please give me some time to research this for you. (I should remember this as it is a question on microsoft's MCDST test)

dsenette is the fastest reply in town

Edit: i merged the dupes for you.....i even had time to edit my post before you posted yours hahaha - dsenette
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#9
Charliee03

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anybody know what I should do?

still have no idea where to start
just so you guys know

these hardrives were already formatted as 1 TB when I bought them
But what happened was the enclosure that came with them, the power in the enclosure died, I needed files on the storage while the case was broken, so I hooked up one of the hard drives to an empty enclosure and had 1 of the 2 hard drives running to access data, what I did was I was writing files to the single hard drive that was formated with the second but the second wasnt being used. It some how currupted both drives when I got my new dual enclosure and had both drives running together again, an I had just reformated everything, but once it finished both drives where basically seperated from there dual format an now on its own showin 500 gig each.. I need the storage and convenience of 1 TB


so.. maybe they were factory formated as a Raid setting since it was currupt when they were seperated, I have no clue I dont know deep information on how this actually works.

But I really want to get both of these drives running together again ASAP!!

and respones or tips would be great , thanks to you all for your replies.
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