Is it important to partition external hard disk?

[ROHITfx]

Hi,

I have an external 500 gb Hard disk.
My question is about partitioning. Should I make partitions on it for better performance or I can use it without partition? Does partitioning the HDD will help me in any way?
If yes How to partition my 500 gb Maxtor external Hdd? Do I need to download any software? I am using windows XP SP3.
My another problem is that I already have about 90 Gb data on it & some folders are not accessible for me. Those folders are not opening & shows me empty in properties. Though it has the data (Movies, Songs, Images) inside it. What is the best way to recover that data & place on the same hdd systematically? with or without partition?
Thanks in advance.

[Rudra.J]

Partitioning is just done to split up the total storage. This can be implemented for various reasons for example, seperating the types of data [multimedia from softwares and games...]. But i partition to save my data. There are some times that some partition gets corrupt due to some reason, at this time you have to format the disk. If you have separate partitions not all your data will be lost. If you have a single partition, all your data will be lost... So now that you know the true need for partitions, you know what to do...

[Nipendra Garg]

You can connect your hard disk with your desktop machine then simply right click on My Computer, click on manage option. Computer management screen will open, click on disk management. here you can see your 500GB HDD and here you will get a option to create a partition.

by the way I dont think there is any need to partition your external harddisk. As per my knowledge It will not help to you anyway to improve performance.

[ROHITfx]

OK I got your point here. Now I want to make partition but now the question is how to recover the inside data? Can you please suggest me a solution for this.
I have already scanned my hdd with Stellar Phoenix software. But it says I cant use the same external hdd to recover the data. Can I recover the data in parts? So ill just burn it on DVDs? IS it a good idea? My internal hdd is just 80gb & has 30 Gb of free space.

[Nipendra Garg]

If your external HDD has FAT32 Partition type, then you can simply recover your data after format the HDD with the help of "getDataBack" software. I did this before with my HDD. You can download from the net or i also have the full version. It's freeware so dont bother abt download. If you will not able to download just let me know I will mail u in your mail ID.
Hope this will help u. I am in Pune.

[rupak]

Hey I have a suggestion for you.
Please try this & see if it works for you or not?

First solution: Make a ubuntu Linux CD & install it on one of the partition of your desktop hard disk. or you can also use any linux live CD for the purpose. but installing ubuntu will be a better option.
Now boot into your Linux OS & now you can see all the files which you can not see in windows. Now you just need to move the required files to another location or you can take backup too.
When you boot in windows XP again you will be able to see your files again.

Second solution: take ownership of a file or a folder in Windows XP

If you must access a file or a folder that you do not have rights to, you must take ownership of that file or folder. When you do this, you replace the security permissions that were originally created for the file or folder.

[ROHITfx]

@ Nipendra Garg Thanks for you suggestions & support.
I will definitely give a try to your suggestion.

I have a simple question for you guys. The problem am facing with my external is due to the difference in file system?
My desktop hdd is NTFS & external hdd is FAT32. IS this a cause of the problem? DO I need to change the external hdd file system from FAT32 to NTFS?

Thanks in advance. Right now I have decided to recover whatever I can on DVD's since the movies & songs I have are really rare & classics. Don't want to spend time downloading all over again.

[Nipendra Garg]

No Rohit , It's not because of diffrent partition type.........Check your internal & external HDD for viruses....... this may be one cause.

[Fabian]

FAT32 and NTFS dosen't actually matters here. Nor partitioning is a big issue. Only thing is that FAT32 is need if you want to access you drive via DOS. Otherwise leave it. And for that data recovery thing first ensure that the folder has the data that means right click on the folder and see the size. If the size is shown and the folder is empty then the data can be recoverable. Download the below tool and try to locate you hard drive. Hope this can help you.
DATA Recovery