LaCie Rugged Hard Disk user manual Optional Formatting and Partitioning, What is Formatting?

LaCie Rugged Hard Disk • Design by Neil Poulton	Optional Formatting and Partitioning
User Manual	page 15

3. Optional Formatting and Partitioning

The first time you use your LaCie hard disk, LaCie Setup As- sistant formats your drive according to your needs. If your needs change, you can reformat your LaCie hard disk to op- timize it for use with Windows or Mac, or for cross-platform use. For example, if you used LaCie Setup Assistant to format your drive to work with your Mac (HFS+), but now you want to share your hard disk with Windows users, you can reformat it to FAT 32 (MS-DOS) for this purpose.

You may need to format your LaCie hard disk if LaCie Setup Assistant was interrupted or stopped. If the hard disk does not appear in My Computer (Windows) or on the desktop (Mac), it may not be formatted properly.

What is Formatting?

When a disk is formatted, the following things occur: the operat- ing 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 address tables that it later uses to locate information. A hard disk must be formatted before it can be used to store data.

Important Info: Please copy the User Manual and utilities to your computer before reformatting. Reformat- ting will erase everything from the hard disk. If you have other data that you want to protect or continue to use, copy this infor- mation to your computer before reformatting.

File System Formats

There are three different file system format categories: NTFS, FAT 32 (MS-DOS), and Mac OS Extended (HFS+). Use the information below to determine which format is best for you.

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 cre- ate 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 (performance will generally be greater when compared to FAT 32). This file system is compatible in read only mode with Mac OS X 10.3 and higher.

Use HFS+ if…

...you will be using the drive on Macs only; performance 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 OS X 10.3 or sharing the drive between Windows 2000 and Windows XP or Windows Vista. Maximum single file size is 4GB.