Split external HDD , only one partition shows in Windows7

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Hello,

I have a WD Elements usb external HDD. It used to be formatted as a single partition of 650GB NTFS. Recently I decided to split it in 2 so I can install an OS on it for troubleshooting and backup and whatnot.

So I split the volume in 2 partitions, making a 40GB NTFS Secondary Logical Partition using Acronis Disk Director 11. It all went fine, Acronis showing that I now have 2 partitions: "Elements" - Primary and "ElementsOS" - Logical.
However, my laptop's windows7x32 only sees the ElementsOS partition O.o

This is weird. Neither explorer nor totalCommander see the main Elements partition, yet if I plug the hdd into my PC, the Windows7x64 I have there shows both of them just fine.

I have restarted the laptop, went to DeviceManager where WD Elements 1023 USB Device shows just as before, next to my laptop's HDD, scanned for changes, but nothing happened.

Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing? It's probably not related to Acronis, but what gives?
Thanks for any insight!

Mon, 08/15/2011 - 14:53
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Tudor Dan:

Windows will only show the first partition on removable drives. What you see is completely normal. Other operating systems, like Linux, will show them all.

Mon, 08/15/2011 - 15:44
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truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
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O RLY, then how come my rig running the same Windows 7 ultimate, only x64, sees BOTH partitions?

Is there some configuration to make windows treat it like a regular hard drive? (maybe I have that enabled on my rig and don't know/remember)?

And why does it show the secondary partition? (the empty one) Can I at least define which one windows will show?

Mon, 08/15/2011 - 16:16
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What does Disk Management show for the drive? When you say Windows doesn't see it, do you mean Disk Management or Explorer? If Explorer, it's possible the partition is just not assigned a drive letter. This can be done using DD or Disk Management.

Otherwise, Disk Management has quite a few quirks of its own. It's possible that the partition is not being seen correctly due to how the split was done (by DD, not you). Have you tried deleting the "new" partition and recreating it? Does Windows see the original partition okay after you delete the new one?

Most of the time, multiple partitions show up correctly on USB hard drives since they are seen as regular drives. Flash drives and media like that are usually limited to one partition unless the device is changed to appear as a hard drive.

I'm not sure which OS you plan to install on the USB drive. You should be aware that Windows won't install and run from a USB drive unless tweaked to do so. Even then it's quite slow.

Mon, 08/15/2011 - 16:49
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I mean Explorer. I indeed did not assign letters to the partitions, I thought that would be done automatically by windows. I thought that if I manually assign a letter it might conflict with let's say a usb stick or something else.

I'm currently checking the disk for errors, and it's gonna take a bit. So I can't verify this at the moment. But you're probably right.

I was planning on having both ubuntu and windows 7 (though I knew windows 7 would be slow, I didn't know it needs to be tweaked somehow). I also wanted windows so that I could boot and run windows programs on a windows machine with a broken OS partition.

To be more precise, right now I needed windows on the portable hdd so I would install acronis backup on it, and restore from backup a windows partition, putting it on another laptop's internal hdd. But I now realize that it's probably not the most straight forward way to go about doing this.
How would you recommend I restore a windows partition on a laptop if the backup is on my portable hdd, and I don't want to install windows on that laptop before restoring backup? (is there a version of acronis that can be burned to a bootable cd? or a version for ubuntu?)

Mon, 08/15/2011 - 17:11
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Normally, the TI CD (or flash drive) is used. You create this using TI or you can download the ISO file from your Acronis account and create a CD from it. You boot the CD and run TI to restore the image.

What you are trying to do with Windows on the USB hard drive may sound good in theory, but it's quite problematic (or impossible) to implement.

Mon, 08/15/2011 - 17:30
truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
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You were right. As soon as I set my drive letters on the WD, both partitions showed up. Thanks!

As for the backup, after what you said I found Acronis True Image > Tools and Utilities > Rescue Media Library, which brings you to the Acronis bootable Media Builder, to make a bootable usb drive.

Cheers!

Mon, 08/15/2011 - 19:54