[tlug] Re: [OT?]A Hard Drive Question

["Gernot Hassenpflug" <aikishugyo@example.com>]

This reminded me: I tried to format a new harddrive (IDE) for a friend
using a LiveCD and the HDD connected toa USB via a USB-to-IDE
converter cable with external power supply(*).

Results:
1) Windows could not format the drive.

2) Linux could see the drive (/var/log/messages showed connection to
/dev/sda), parted could read the drive but not create a partition.
Doing the actions ended with a partition ostensibly there, but it
could not be formatted.

3) Finally, opened up PC while wife was on vacation, attached to IDE
and voila, LiveCD and parted worked like a charm. Windows can do that
too though...

Unfortunately I have no second such connector to test against (it
works for reading and writing data to and from attached drives), and I
wondered if there is an issue with trying to partition unformatted
harddrives over a USB connection. Needless to say, during the attempts
I spent several hours Googling for how to do this.

(*) Reason: my friend did not want to open his wife's PC because she
would give him a hard time if she found out. His own PCs had all IDE
connections used up.
--
Gernot Hassenpflug