T42s and Rescue And Recovery 2.0

[w0qj]

my T42s and Rescue And just installed Recovery 2.0 (factory came pre-installed with Rapid Restore Ultra v4.0). Windows XP-Pro, SP2 factory pre-install.


i'm in a catch-22 situation and would like your help.
(also serve as warning for others).


Question: How do i format my portable USB hard drive (40 MB) back into FAT32 file system format?

Rescue and Recovery 2.0 formatted it into NTFS.

after phoning IBM Technical Support (my 60 days technical support has not expire yet), they say i *cannot* format my USB hard drive (40 MB) back into FAT32 file system format??


IBM's reasoning as below:
a) Windows XP will not format my NTFS USB hard drive back into FAT32--it's a feature.
b) my old Windows'98se computer won't recognize any hard drive that's larger than 32 GB in size. therefore it cannot format my 40 GB USB hard drive, because it cannot "see" this 40 GB USB hard drive.


anyone can help, short of buying Partition Magic?
Partion Magic program is so expensive that i can almost BUY another hard drive with that money...

[egibbs]

BootItNG - http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

They used to have a 30 day full feature trial - not sure if they still do or not but download it and see. Cheaper then PM and I know several IT pros who swear by it.

Ed Gibbs

[w0qj]

many thanks for your very helpful tip--it worked!

successfully converted my 40 GB USB portable HDD from NTFS to FAT32 using this trialware.

many thanks again!