How do I format portable startup HD

[rabbit69er]

My situation here is twofold:
I have XP and want to format/partition(s) a new hard drive for fat16, 32, and NTFS. The new drifve is 250gb and I want to use it to load utilities to diagnose other system problems, hardware problems on other system, and also as a backup/imager for my own system.
How do I format it (it will be an external in enclosure which I plan to use as a carry along) so that it will be a boot disk for a down system and create the partitions, as well as size allocation, for other data?

Second is a system I am currently looking at for a friend gives a S.M.A.R.T. error and will not load and run operating system. The message indicates to back up all data (no can do if it will not access the HD) and that the HD may be damaged. I'm trying to come up with a way to run the pc on my portable hard drive while attempting to determine the extent of the HD problem and if it can be reparied. If not I want to try and salvage any data if possible.

Thanks for your help here. I'm stuck.

[Kevin_gibson]

Rabbit69er,

Hi,

With regards to this, when you load up, can you actually boot from the external HDD?
If you can, use an XP CD and create the partitions you want.

IF your friends HDD is giving SMART errors, the HDDs had it, try and use it as a slave drive if possible, if it can't be accessed..
The HDD needs replacing.