USB drive shows only one partition

[OldDuffer]

Just thrown away my hideous BT Home Hub 3 and replaced it with a Netgear D6400, latest firmware installed (V1.0.0.56_1.0.56).  All seems well except for the USB-connected 2TB Western Digital drive I've been using for a number of years (if I recall correctly it worked with my previous Netgear ADSL device too).

Simple problem: there are three partitions on the drive but I can only see one.  Wasn't a problem for the crappy BT device.

I've seen some posts suggesting it may be a genuine issue with the Netgear devices, ie. there don't appear to be successful resolutions to this missing configuration.

Can I configure my way out of this or do I have to combine all of the partitions into one?

Thanks,

Keith

[aalexandrebeta · Accepted solution]

Glad to have been usefull to you.

Kudos appriciated.

Have a great day!

[aalexandrebeta]

What type of partitions the HDD has?

[OldDuffer]

Hi,

There's a primary partition and two logical partitions, all formatted as FAT32.

Thanks,

Keith

[aalexandrebeta]

The only answer I am thinking about is that the device is booting only on one partition and on the primary and do not recognize the logical ones.

I may be wrong!

[OldDuffer]

It's not a boot device, it's only used for storage. I can only see the primary partition through ReadyShare, not the logical ones.

[aalexandrebeta]

I know this is not a boot device but the way the unit is booting on the drive it only sees the first partition and blind to the other logical ones.

[OldDuffer]

Thanks for your comments and interest, but I'm not sure where this is going: I know it only sees the primary, that's the problem.

The question is whether more recent Netgear kit can or should recognise multiple partitions on a USB drive? My old ADSL router could (I think it was a DGND3300) and the lousy BT kit could ... why not the D6400 which is way superior in all other respects.

Thanks.

[aalexandrebeta]

Do you have an USB key, make an experiment doing 2 partitons and see if the 2 are recognized or only one?

[OldDuffer]

That was a really good suggestion. I eventually got a USB thumb drive set up with two partitions and ReadyShare does actually see both: fantastic news!

I think the two non-primary partitions may be Extended rather than Logical (they're reported as logical by the EaseUS tool I'm using). I may be able to convert from Extended to Logical in which case job done! Let's see.

Thanks.

[aalexandrebeta]

I am glad that I could eventually helped you to partially solve your issue!

Thumbs up!!

[OldDuffer]

Success!  But I'm not 100% sure why.

Having spent Sunday backing up the three partitions on the USB drive, last night I converted one of the extended partitions to logical in EaseUS Partition Manager and confirmed that the content was as I expected on a desktop.  I then plugged the drive into the D6400, expecting to see the primary and one of the non-primary partitions ... and lo! ... I could see all three.

I'm currently running with an apparent mix of three types of partition but it seems to be quite happy, I have the primary, a logical and the unconverted extended partition.  I don't intend to tinker further, it's working for my purposes.

I reckon this is solved: thanks for your help!

Keith

[aalexandrebeta · Accepted solution]

Glad to have been usefull to you.

Kudos appriciated.

Have a great day!