Problems formatting a tivo hard drive for use in Windows

[bigmac]

Hi.

I want to format one of my tivo hard drives to FAT32 or NTFS format to be used in windows. Right now, when I take the hard drive out of the tivo and put it in the computer, windows can only see 9M in it. It's a 160G hard drive. I'm guessing that it's because tivo divides that hard drive into many partitions in Linux, and my computer sees only one of those partitions.

Now, how do I format what seems to be a Linux hard drive from tivo to a Windows hard drive?

I appreciate any suggestions.

[hayreass]

Try using the utility software from the drive manufacturer. (sp?)

[PortlandPaw]

Run (carefully run) fdisk from the dos prompt and make sure you're operating on the drive in question and not your C:/ drive!

Then reboot and format for NTFS or FAT32 either from the dos prompt or from Windows. The latter is preferable because, if I recall correctly, that gives you the NTFS/FAT32 options and you don't have to know the command line options.

But if you want the command line options, type "format /?" from the dos prompt.

[bigmac]

I tried fdisk and Partition Magic. Both of can only see 6M of space on my 160G hard drive. I tried the manufacturer cd (Maxtor) too, and that gave the same result.

[bigmac]

I've found out what the problem is. It seems I have to qunlock the drive before anything else can see its full capacity. Thanks for your helps.

[eastwind]

I've found out what the problem is. It seems I have to qunlock the drive before anything else can see its full capacity. Thanks for your helps.
Proceed with caution. Qunlock is an older program that might not be compatible with a newer hard disk. There's an alternative called diskutil. Find it instead or you'll risk FUBARing your firmware.

ew