Gparted - external hard disk partitioning error (ntfs)

crashhh · 09-26-2010, 09:08 AM

Hi. I am trying to use GParted (in a live cd-booted Ubuntu) to partition my Transcend 320gb external hard disk and I am having some trouble.

I am not sure if it's hardware related, or if I should be posting it here on this forum, but this is the error that gparted gave:

Create Primary Partition #1 (ntfs, 100.59 GiB) on /dev/sdc 00:03:20 ( ERROR )

create empty partition 00:01:20 ( SUCCESS )

path: /dev/sdc1
start: 63
end: 210949514
size: 210949452 (100.59 GiB)
set partition type on /dev/sdc1 00:01:18 ( SUCCESS )

new partition type: ntfs
create new ntfs file system 00:00:42 ( ERROR )

mkntfs -Q -v -L "" /dev/sdc1

Cluster size has been automatically set to 4096 bytes.
Creating NTFS volume structures.
Creating root directory (mft record 5)
Creating $MFT (mft record 0)
Creating $MFTMirr (mft record 1)
Creating $LogFile (mft record 2)
Creating $AttrDef (mft record 4)
Creating $Bitmap (mft record 6)
Error writing to /dev/sdc1: Input/output error.
Error writing non-resident attribute value.
Couldn't create $Bitmap: Input/output error

I really don't know what's up. I'm currently testing if partitioning it as ext4 would make any difference. Thanks.

Update: Well, ext4 worked. Though I need this drive to be in NTFS. Any help? Thank you.

syg00 · 09-26-2010, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crashhh

Though I need this drive to be in NTFS.

Do it it on Windows.
If you don't have access to a Windows systems you won't be able to repair NTFS in all likelihood - doesn't sound like a good idea.

crashhh · 09-26-2010, 09:35 AM

I've actually tried that already using Windows's default Disk Management utility. I'm using XP btw, and it didn't work. Some errors were encountered. But let me try it again and see what happens. Thanks.

crashhh · 09-26-2010, 09:50 AM

Well, here's what happened. All along, I was trying to distribute the capacity to almost equal sizes on 3 partitions, like 100gb + 100gb + remaining. That didn't work.

However (using Gparted still), it was able to successfully make 2 NTFS partitions (146gb + 151gb). Did the partition size really have any bearing with this?

The 151gb partition had some errors though, which was fixed by chkdsk /f as instructed by Gparted. I think this issue is resolved. Though I'd like to know what might have gone wrong before. Thanks.