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I want to split a large external USB hard drive into at least 2 partitions.
I've heard that multiple partitions on a USB drive involves problems not associated with partitioning a regular IDE/SATA hard drive, especially with Windows. But I can't find specific information about it.
What are those specific problems, and how are they avoided or worked around? Do journaling file systems like ext3, ext4, xfs present special concerns for a USB drive? What are the particular problems Windows has with a partitioned USB drive that don't exist with regular internal drives?
I plan to use Linux (most likely GParted) to do the partitioning. I also plan to use Truecrypt's whole-partition encryption on the partitions, so a thief doesn't have easy access to the data.
Linux doesn't seem to be able to read multiple partitions created by Windows 10 (Ubuntu specifically) @harrymc https://superuser.com/questions/1470936/usb-storage-partitioned-with-windows-10-doesnt-work-on-older-versions-of-window
– Shayan – 2019-08-13T19:46:19.153Thanks. I can live with Windows only seeing one partition; I'll use Linux for the occasional need to transfer a file from one partition to another. – Mike Rowave – 2011-04-15T14:18:28.953
1Without using trickery, how do I ensure that Windows sees the one partition I want it to see? Does the partition have to be placed first, or last? Or do I format only one partition with a format Windows that can understand (FAT32 or NTFS), so that Windows will see the FAT32/NTFS partition and ignore the ext2/ext3 Linux partition? – Mike Rowave – 2011-04-15T14:24:46.713
it might 'just work' on a standard usb hard drive - they arn't the same as a USB stick to windows – Journeyman Geek – 2011-04-15T14:39:49.863
1For Windows, only the physically first partition is (almost) guaranteed to be accessible. The other partitions might or might not, depending on parameters that are not all that clear, and that also depend upon the version of Windows. – harrymc – 2011-04-15T15:30:37.740