NTFS write capability

[sjdigital]

I've trawled the Firmware forum to see how I can add NTFS write capabiilty to my WL-HDD but I struggle to understand the very technical nature of the discussions. But it seems (and this is what I need clarification on) that although the latest firmware revision of JockyW - v.1.1.2.8 does provide NTFS write capability, in order to upgrade to this firmware you need to be able to write to Part 1 of the HDD.

My problem is that I have simply slotted the HD from my notebook straight into the WL-HDD and as it is NTFS I can read all the files on it, but can't add to them, nor amend them. And of course this means that Part 1 is also NTFS, and so I can't add the files to Part 1 that are needed for the upgrade.

Am I right in thinking therefore, that in order to get the NTFS write capabilty I need to reformat the HDD to FAT32 (and lose all the data on it) in order to be able to do the necessary writing of files to Part 1? If my interpretation is correct, it negates the benefit (to me, that is) of adding NTFS writing, since if I have to reformat to FAT32, I might as well just leave it as FAT32 and then copy back my files to it.

Or have I misunderstood things?

[Styno]

I don't know the WL-HDD, but if you use a partition manager like Partition Magic or Ranish Partition manager, you can change your partitions without losing the data.

What you need is to shrink the NTFS partition in order to get 256 Mb (or whatever you choose) free in front of the NTFS partition. After that use the same tools (or fdisk under Linux) to creat ext3 and swap partition in the free space. Then you can install the firmware and enable swap.

[sjdigital]

Thanks for this reply. I was wrestling with the bloomin' thing over the weekend and had tried to use Partition Magic on it but without success unless it was installed back in my notebook. So I ended up just copying back to my note book those files that I wanted to save, and then I formatted the disk with the format utility that comes with it. I really struggle with all the various terminology you guys use :o so decided that was probably the easiest option. I then just copied back the files again.

It certainly isn't the fastest disk around in terms of transfer speeds but it serves my purpose of providing easily accessible back up storage as well as a location for my mp3s to be accessible from various wireless devices.