How to prepare a new drive for upgrading?

[gofurygo]

Preparing a new drive for your jukebox using a notebook/pc (with ide to 2.5" adapter) with fdisk

What do you need for partitioning/formating a new 2.5" notebook harddrive with fdisk:

- A working floppy-drive.
- A bootdisk from www.bootdisk.com , I'd suggest the Windows-ME bootdisk since it fits on one disk and includes the latest version of fdisk.exe (which can handle drives with more than 64GB) Get it here: http://www.acmps.com/TechFiles/Boot%20Disk/bootme.exe

For PCs only: an IDE to 2.5" adapter.

Notes: Windows 98 doesn't necessarily need a bootdisk. Just restart your computer to DOS-mode and follow the instructions below. I tried the ME-bootdisk with Windows XP. No problem since the only thing you want is fdisk. So this should work with all versions of windows

For notebooks: Insert the new drive into your notebook.

For PCs: Connect your new drive to an empty IDE-port using your IDE to 2.5" adapter. Possibly, you need to set the jumpers to „slave“.

Okay, now you're ready to go:

Insert the bootdisk start your notebook/pc. Tell bios that the floppy drive is your first boot device.
Once the screen shows „A:“ just type „fdisk“. Depending on the size of your disk you can either enable support for large disks or not. I'd suggest to confirm the offered settings. Now your screen should be looking like this:


What you want is 1. Always keep in mind that you'll need a primary (active, bootable) partition to make your Archos boot from that disk.
Now you're entering the „Create DOS Paritition or Logical DOS Drive“ menu.



Again, select 1.
Now create a single partition using the maximum capacity of your drive.



When you're done, reboot using the bootdisk. After the screen shows „A:“ type fdisk again. To make sure that you're formating the new drive, select 4 from the fdisk menu above. Remember the drive letter assigned to your new drive. Now quit fdisk and type „format X:“ (while X is the driver letter of your new drive) As file-system choose FAT32 – your jukebox only handles FAT32.
For detailed information on how to handle fdisks options I recommend this guide at radified.com --> http://radified.com/Files/fdisk_rad.zip

Congratulations, you just managed to partition and format a new drive for your Archos Jukebox.
Now reassemble your unit and connect it to your computer for transfering files to it.

[gofurygo]

Preparing a new drive for your jukebox using a pc (with ide to 2.5" adapter or usb-enclosure) running Windows 2000/XP built in device manager.

What needs to be done before you're able to partition/format your drive:
- Hook it using either an IDE to 2.5" adapter or an usb-enclosure.

Okay, now start your computer. Windows should detect the drive, but being unable to write anything to it.
Now enter device-manager, which looks like this: (sorry, german screenshot only at the moment):



Now right click on your new drive. You should now be able to create a new partition. Again, same thing as above – what you want is a primary (active, bootable) dos-partition. Use the maximum capacity of your drive. After partitioning is finished right click again for formating. Format the drive using FAT32. When formating is done, power down your pc – remove the drive and reassemble your jukebox.

Congratulations, you just managed to partition and format a new drive for your Archos Jukebox.
Now connect it through usb for transfering files.

[gofurygo]

Hi again,

It's been a while since I used fdisk the last time. So please post below if anything of this should be wrong or if there's something that should be changed/added. We don't want a wrong how-to, don't we..

Fury
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[Linus]

For the record, it is perfectly possible to partition and format the drive with the Archos USB connection. No need to purchase an enclosure or 3.5" adapter.

I don't know about Windows, but it is definitely possible with Linux.
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Linus Nielsen Feltzing
Core Rockbox developer since day 0