On 12/24/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi > > I want to format a 80 GB External Harddisk as a backup drive to be > accessible by both Linux and Wincedows. Is using FAT32 a good option > (considering that having to allow access from wincedows is a necessity > for the time being). think fat32 is goos option of reusability of the device across platform i.e. windows/linux > > Secondly : are there an restrictions on how large the FAT32 partition > can be . > > Thirdly will rsync work to back up from a ext3 drive to a FAT32 drive > and how reliable will this be
> > Lastly is this the right command > > cfdisk /media/usbdisk** cfdisk partitions your disk. you will stilll need to format the partition. use cfdisk this way cfdisk /dev/*usbdiskdevicename* (this you need to obtain from dmesg as soon as you insert the usb usually something like sda,sdb....so on) use mkfs.msdos /dev/*usbpartitionnames* (usually sda1,sda5.. so on. ) one restriction about using msdos filesystem is the maximum partition size in 30gb sorts.. ( please correct me if I'm wrong here) ----- I suggest that since u would be using the USB drive on linux and windows, u create the partitions using linux, while formatting the drive in FAT32 using windows. Reason, Windows just screws up partition table, better to use the linux partitioning tools. Kapil _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/