Seagate ST31270A manual Partitioning and formatting the drive, Low-level formatting

20 Medalist 1270 Installation Guide, July 1995

Partitioning and formatting the drive

Before you can use your Seagate drive, you must partition and high-level format it. In this guide we discuss formatting your drive with DOS—refer to your DOS user’s guide for assistance. If you are using another operating system, consult your operating sys- tem user’s guide for formatting instructions.

Note. If you have not copied the free installation software to a diskette, your computer will detect a partition on the drive. Only the first two cylinders are formatted at the factory to store the software files. You must erase this partition before you can access the full drive capacity. You can either transfer the files to a diskette—the partition is erased when the transfer is complete—(see page 11 for instruc- tions) or partition and format the drive as described below.

Low-level formatting

The drive is low-level formatted at the factory using 512 bytes per sector. Low-level formatting is not required.

Partitioning

You must partition the drive into one or more logical drives before you can use it.

Caution. Partitioning or formatting a drive at any level erases all data on it. Make a backup copy of your existing files on another drive before you repartition or reformat. Sea- gate assumes no liability if you erase your data.

You can partition a drive as follows:

1.Insert a bootable diskette into Drive A. Turn the computer on.

2.After the computer has completed booting, remove the boo- table diskette from Drive A. Insert a diskette that has the FDISK utility into Drive A and type fdisk. Press ENTER.

Note. If you have two drives in your system, the menu displays five options. Option five allows you to select the drive you want to partition. Be sure to select the correct drive.