Optional Formatting and Partitioning

LaCie Golden Disk	Formatting and Partitioning
User Manual	Page 12

3. Optional Formatting and Partitioning

Your LaCie Hard Disk is preformatted in FAT-32, optimized for us with Mac OS X and Windows. If you plan to use your LaCie Hard Disk with both Mac and Windows computers, you do not need to reformat. If you plan to use the drive with one operating system only, you may notice increased performance by reformatting for your operating system. See below.

Important Info: Please copy the User Manual and utilities to your computer before reformatting. Reformatting will erase everything from the Hard Disk. If you have other data that you want to protect or continue to use, copy this information to your computer before reformatting.

■What is Formatting?

When a disk is formatted, the following things oc- cur: the operating system erases all of the bookkeeping information on the disk, tests the disk to make sure that all of the sectors are reliable, marks bad sectors (i.e., those that are scratched) and creates internal ad- dress tables that it later uses to locate information. Your LaCie Hard Disk is preformatted in FAT 32 (MS- DOS) format. To reformat your drive, follow the in- structions in this section.

■What is Partitioning?

You can also divide the Hard Disk into sections, called partitions. A partition is a section of the Hard Disk’s storage capacity that is created to contain files and data. For instance, you could create three partitions on your drive: one partition for your office documents, one as a backup and one for your multimedia files. Or, if you will be sharing the drive with another person in your household or office, you can create a partition for each person who uses the drive. Partitioning is optional.

Use NTFS if...

...you will be using the drive only with Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista (perfor- mance will generally be greater when compared to FAT 32). This file system is compatible in read only mode with Mac OS 10.3 and higher.

Use HFS+ if...

...you will be using the drive on Macs only; perfor- mance will generally be greater when compared to FAT 32. This file system is NOT compatible with Windows OS.

Use FAT 32 (MS-DOS) if...

...you will be using your drive with both Windows and Mac 10.3 or sharing the drive between Win- dows 2000 and Windows XP or Windows Vista. Maximum single file size is 4GB.

■File System Formats

There are three different file system format catego- ries: NTFS, FAT 32 (MS-DOS), and Mac OS Extend- ed (HFS+). See the table, right, for more information.