# Format Hopper External Hard Drive



## SeaBeagle (May 7, 2006)

Can I format a hard drive that I used on my DISH Hopper do I can use the hard drive on my computer?


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## thomasjk (Jan 10, 2006)

Yes but you will need some flavor of Linux I believe.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Not to be used by both at the same time... but if you are looking to use it on your computer instead of your Dish receiver, you should have some form of "disk manager" in whatever operating system you are using that will allow you to delete partitions and reformat.


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## SeaBeagle (May 7, 2006)

Stewart Vernon said:


> Not to be used by both at the same time... but if you are looking to use it on your computer instead of your Dish receiver, you should have some form of "disk manager" in whatever operating system you are using that will allow you to delete partitions and reformat.


Any recommendations? I plan on using the had drive on my computer only.

When I look at the hard drive on the MY COMPUTER window the hard drive fir some weird reason is listed as a CD Drive. Why would a Western Digital hard drive be recognized as a CD Drive?

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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Your computer may be seeing only the read only portion of the drive ... a small section with WD software for managing the drive. The writable portion of the drive should show up but may be unrecognized after your DISH receiver formatted it.

(Several of the recent drives I have purchased are "two drives", one with backup/drive management software and the other for the actual storage.)


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## SeaBeagle (May 7, 2006)

James Long said:


> Your computer may be seeing only the read only portion of the drive ... a small section with WD software for managing the drive. The writable portion of the drive should show up but may be unrecognized after your DISH receiver formatted it.
> 
> (Several of the recent drives I have purchased are "two drives", one with backup/drive management software and the other for the actual storage.)


I decided to forget the whole idea. I purchased me a 1TB Western Digital USB powered hard drive for 54.00 including shipping.

Model number is MFR: Western Digital MFR Part#: WDBUZG0010BBK-NESN. I may purchase another just fir a second backup.

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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Yeah, James is probably right... some hard drives have installable software on a partition that "looks" like a CD drive to many computers for ease of installation of that software (should you choose to install it)... you probably are just as well off having a new drive, though, and you know what you're doing with that one since you'll be starting from scratch.


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## SeaBeagle (May 7, 2006)

Oh I finally formatted the hard drive using EaseUS. Took awhile to figure out but worked. Not backing to every file on my computer using My PC Backup.


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