Formatting a WHS drive to 64k

[dislecksea]

OK - I have read what is here, and I am probably dumb as a box of rocks, but I just cannot figure out how to make this work. I have a brand new drive installed in my WHS machine. I have not added it to the share or anything and would like to format it for 64k. But I just cannot figure out how to do it.

I have read that you can attach a monitor, keyboard, and mouse and use "Disk Management" to format the drive. So I hooked them up. However, I cannot for the life of me find "Disk Management" on my WHS. I did install Sam Wood's add-on "Disk Management" but cannot find anything about formatting a drive.

Alternatively, I have read that you can do it using Remote Desktop. However, when I try to get in that way it tells me I have to get that right through "Terminal Services" and I don't know how to do that!

HELP!

[stevech]

Originally Posted by dislecksea

OK - I have read what is here, and I am probably dumb as a box of rocks, but I just cannot figure out how to make this work. I have a brand new drive installed in my WHS machine. I have not added it to the share or anything and would like to format it for 64k. But I just cannot figure out how to do it.

I have read that you can attach a monitor, keyboard, and mouse and use "Disk Management" to format the drive. So I hooked them up. However, I cannot for the life of me find "Disk Management" on my WHS. I did install Sam Wood's add-on "Disk Management" but cannot find anything about formatting a drive.

Alternatively, I have read that you can do it using Remote Desktop. However, when I try to get in that way it tells me I have to get that right through "Terminal Services" and I don't know how to do that!

HELP!

Maybe you too have read here that with WHS, the video partitions or drives at 64KB need to be outside the set of disks managed by WHS. I guess at last resort you can right-click on a drive, go through properties to get to format. Or command line "format".

[HelenWeathers]

Attach a monitor, keyboard, and mouse and go to Start, Control Pannel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management. Drive info is displayed to right side with Disk number, Drive letter and Partition Display to right side for each drive. Right click on the partition of the drive you want to format, click format and you'll be able to pick 64K from there.

64K is not always available as a choice from My Computer when right clicking on the drive to format.

[Khristopher]

The key piece of information here is that your SageTV recording drive *MUST* be outside of the WHS Drive Pool.

You can not use a drive that has been "Added" to the pool. If you've already done this, you must go through the "Remove Drive" wizard which will copy everything off and remove the drive from the pool. Only then can you use it with SageTV running on WHS.

[dislecksea]

Thank you Helen, that was exactly what I needed to know. The drive is formatting right now.

FYI to those who may read this later:
1. There was indeed no option for formatting the disk when right clicking on the drive under My Computer.
2. When you follow Helen's instructions, you right click on the drive and select Partition. WHS will format the drive when it creates 1 big partition.

[Beefcake550]

Wrong, the sageTV recording does NOT need to be outside the pool. YMWV - case in point my system. Having the drive be outside the pool actually CAUSED the studdering that is associated with the common sense thought of leavign it outside the pool.

My suggestion is to leave the drive outside the pool and format to 64KB clusters. If you have any issues, put the drive into the pool (will reformat the drive).

Good luck. I've since ditched WHS since it's not possible (at least not yet) to control which physical disk in the pool any data goes to. yes, I know it supposed to balance things out, but it didn't in my case of trying to install from scratch 3 times.

Oh well....when they release that tool or fix the "balancing" algorithm, I'll join the WHS fan club again. It was certainly easy to set things up.

-Brian

[stevech]

Originally Posted by Beefcake550

I've sicne sitched WHS ...

Oh well....when they release that tool or fix the "balancing" algorithm, I'll join the WHS fan club again. It was certainly easy to set things up.

-Brian

After de-typoing, is that "since ditched" (meaning stopped using) ?

[Beefcake550]

yeah, my bad.

I meant to say I stopped using WHS in favor of just plain old vista32 ultimate. Network read write performance seems to be better, but I know that's more that just the network...WHS's file system played a part in the lower write performance.

-Brian

[closeproximity]

I have been reading threads and any information that can be provided will be greatly appreciated. I have built my Windows Home Server and I will like to use it to record TV using Sage...it appears that is possible, but I do not how that actually works. It make sense to use the server perform this function because it has canyons of drive space. I originally intended to build my own PVR, but this approach make sense..."one machine to rule them all". I have seen many threads that make mention of this, but not how physically install Sage on the WHS or what additional hardware is required. I just do not know how to get started. It sounds like I will need a separate hard drive in the server, but then to pool it or not to pool it....whoa, I am getting lost.


Many thanks.

[stevech]

Originally Posted by closeproximity

It make sense to use the server perform this function because it has canyons of drive space.

? ? ? The video recording normally goes in a different partition or drive or RAID than the bootable OS. So your canyon is limited by your budget, not by the OS.

[closeproximity]

That is good point, I did have plans to dedicate an additional drive and now it seems to be an imperative. My next question is more basic: what Sage product(s) would I need? SageTV for Windows 6.4 and a TV tuner card? It is the basic nuts & bolts of is what I am missing.

Thanks again.

[SprDtyF350]

Originally Posted by Khristopher

The key piece of information here is that your SageTV recording drive *MUST* be outside of the WHS Drive Pool.

You can not use a drive that has been "Added" to the pool. If you've already done this, you must go through the "Remove Drive" wizard which will copy everything off and remove the drive from the pool. Only then can you use it with SageTV running on WHS.

You can use the drive in the pool you just cant format it to 64k when it is in the pool.. I did it for a while when I first setup WHS. I removed it later so I could do 64k blocks, and I wanted more control over the drive.

[SprDtyF350]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

Attach a monitor, keyboard, and mouse and go to Start, Control Pannel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management. Drive info is displayed to right side with Disk number, Drive letter and Partition Display to right side for each drive. Right click on the partition of the drive you want to format, click format and you'll be able to pick 64K from there.

64K is not always available as a choice from My Computer when right clicking on the drive to format.

You can also just remote into the server and do whatever you need to without the monitor, or keyboard. I don't even have a video card in mine.. You just have to log in as the administrator.

[S_M_E]

You can use 64k clusters with WHS:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37483

As far as I'm concerned, the old reasons for using unmanged drives in WHS are now obsolete. Maybe it's because I use a lot of drives or maybe because my Sage use is fairly light compared to some but, either way, I like WHS/Sage...

[stevech]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

You can use 64k clusters with WHS:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37483

As far as I'm concerned, the old reasons for using unmanged drives in WHS are now obsolete. Maybe it's because I use a lot of drives or maybe because my Sage use is fairly light compared to some but, either way, I like WHS/Sage...

are you saying that a partition wiht 64KB clusters can be in the WHS pool?

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by stevech

are you saying that a partition wiht 64KB clusters can be in the WHS pool?

I have 6 drives with 64K clusters in my WHS pool, right now. Check out my tutorial for instructions...