Prepare 1TB USB HDD for Topfield

Topfield forums discussed using a 1TB drive and Topfield in their documentation says that the 1TB is supported, however they failed to provide sufficient instructions on how exactly to set it up correctly. I followed the instructions I found but they did not work for me. The instructions talked about creating a FAT32 partition and then allowing the Topfield to format the drive. This did not work for me, so a little more research and trial and error and worked out a solution that worked for me.

I am using VMware Workstation 7 on Vista 32-bit, so these are the basic steps that I took to get it to work. Please note that these instructions were written after the fact so may not be exactly 100% accurate, however I think they should give sufficient information to get there faster than I did.

Downloaded Knoppix livecd
Ran the livecd in VM. It does not have to be VMware, could be VirtualPC, Fusion whatever as long as you can connect the USB device to the VM so that the VM has complete control and not the hosting operating system.
Attached the external USB drive to the VM.

Opened a terminal window in Knoppix and ran the following:

sudo fdisk -l
#identify the correct disk that references your hdd. In my case it was /dev/sdb
sudo fdisk /dev/sdb
#to delete existing partitions
d
#to create new partition
n
#to accept default of 1
enter
#to accept default last cyclinder
enter
#to write the changes to the disk
w
#Restart knoppix
reboot

Not sure why but a restart is required. After the restart open a terminal window.

#double check that the hdd is the same mount? point
sudo fdisk -l
mke2fs /dev/sdb1
#to confirm partition still exists
fdisk -l
#mount new partition to confirm functionality
sudo mount /dev/sdb1
cd /media/sdb1
#Create a directory, to confirm file system is actually there and working
mkdir test
#Change to the new directory
cd test
#Create a text file or something in the directory
echo blah > test.txt
#Un mount the partition
unmount /dev/sdb1

disconnect USB drive and shutdown the VM.

As a double check I installed ext2fs File Manager to allow me to read ext2 linux file systems on my Windows system.
Attach USB drive to host computer
Launched ext2fs file manager to ensure that the partition is now recognised as a linux partition.
Once it is, go to Windows Explorer and view the drive /partition and view the directory and file created earlier is present.
If so, then it is all good an ready to go to the Topfield.
Unmount the drive and disconnect.
Now attach to the Topfield and you should be good to go.

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