How to Partition your External / Portable Hard disk Free!!!

Just got a Iomega eGo 500 GB portable hard drive.

The drive has got a nice casing which makes it durable. On the downside, it needs two USB ports... the manual says that you "might" need to connect second port for additional power..

And yes, at least I need the second USB port to be connected.

So yeah... if your drive does not get recognized , make sure you have connected both the USB connectors.

One more trivia : documentation of Iomega eGo drive indicates that the second or power connector will have a symbol on the same. However, there is no such symbol. In fact there is an easier alternative to tell which is the additional "power" port - the thinner cable of the two usb port.

The drive speed is pretty good.. 1 GB from my 7200 rpm laptop HDD in around 1 min..

so the next step after connecting 500 gig drive is to partition it.. I prefer to partition my drive for manageability and it also provides some recovery advantages.

Here is how you can manage (add/delete) partition from you portable drive in Windows XP :

and yeah.. this is totally FREE... no need to buy software to setup partition on your new portable drive.. ! :)

1. Go to Start-> Run. Type "mmc" [ this opens up Microsoft management console ]

2. Click of File -> Add/Remove Snap in

3. Click on Add and Select "Disk Management" and click Add. Click Finish on next screen

4. Close the Snap in popup and go back to main screen [ console ]

5. Click on disk Management. Your new portable drive should be listed.

6. Right click on your drive and click delete partition

NOTE: This will DELETE and REMOVE all the data from the drive you are changing partition. 7. You can see all the drives will space and partition info listed graphically, just below the list.

8. Right click on your drive (graphical section) and click Add partition. Choose the size and quick format option.

9. Repeat it to create other drives until no free/unallocated partition is remaining for the drive..

Thats it... now you are set. Your new portable hard drive is set up with new partitions.

Split Excel Sheets into different files

Need to split your xls file with multiple sheet into different file for each sheet.

Try google and you will mostly find the paid softwares to do this task. However, google deep enough and you might come up with multiple posts with VBA code - which does this for free.. and yes yes,, hold on.. most of these dont work..

But since I was able to find a working solution I am posting the same here

Scenario 1

Split Excel File having Multiple Worksheet - Each Worksheet saved as separate file. Each file will only have one sheet.

VBA Code:

Sub SplitBookIntoSheets()

Dim i As Integer

Dim ws As Worksheet

Dim CntSheets As Long

Dim FileFolder As String

FileFolder = InputBox("Where would you like these saved?", "filename", "C:\Temp\")

For i = 1 To Worksheets.Count

CntSheets = Worksheets.Count

If CntSheets <> "1" Then

Sheets(CntSheets).Move

ActiveWorkbook.SaveAs Filename:=FileFolder & ActiveSheet.Name & ".xls"

ActiveWindow.Close

Else

ActiveWorkbook.SaveAs Filename:=FileFolder & ActiveSheet.Name & ".xls"

ActiveWindow.Close

End If

Next i

End Sub

Scenario 2

Split Excel File having Multiple Worksheet - Each Worksheet saved as separate file with file name as the sheet name. However, each copy will hold all the sheets..!! not sure if you will ever need this scenario.

VBA Code:

Sub SplitSheets() Dim W As Worksheet For Each W In Worksheets W.SaveAs ActiveWorkbook.Path & "/" & W.Name Next W End Sub

Hope it helps ! :)

Comments Welcome.....

Lost Safely Remove USB Hardware icon in Windows XP?

I plugged my 4GB USB drive into my home laptop and copied some recent tours photos to share with friends.. I copied over the select photos.. and then plugged the USB out once copying was over... and then when I connected to my friends laptop..my flashdrive FAT had been corrupted!!

See.. i missed the step to Safely remove my hardware from Windows XP and removed the USB key without actually turning it off from Windows..and since Windows has some sort of delayed write to these disks... the end result was that Windows was not aware that USB stick has been removed and I lost all data on my list.. most likely the FAT table got corrupted..

And why did I not eject the drive?It turns out.. I do not have that icon appearing on my taskbar when I insert my USB stick...

Formatted my USB key again...:( and then googled to see if can get around the problem caused my messy Windows...

and yes you can manually trigger that Safely remove hardware by following :-

1. Click on Start-> Run

2. Type %windir%\system32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll

3. Hit Ok.. and you should be done..

Another better approach.. if you would like to use it more often is to create a Windows shortcut and add the above command to shortcut.. and then just double click and stop any USB hardware and eject them safely...

Hope it helps..