2018-03-01 22:53:18 IO error: d:\Bitcoin\blocks\index/000419.dbtmp: Could not rename file.
2018-03-01 22:53:18 Database I/O error
Could this be a file system limitation? Which file system do you use?
I think I will abandon this on Windows and look into running a node on Linux instead as this is just way too unreliable
May I suggest installing a "Linux file system" on your external drive? Ext4 is a good default choice.
That is a great suggestion! I'd personally recommend
Minitool Partition Wizard to use for creating partition, IF you wish to create partitions via Windows OS. That tool is easy to use and very reliable. It is very similar to Gparted IMO.
However creating partitions is usually safer on GNU/Linux OS and i think that he should create the partition from installation of
Xubuntu or liveCD. Xubuntu is lightweight, as it features XFCE instead of Gnome3 as DE.