LaCie 301897KUA User Manual

Also see for 301897KUA: Quick install guide

LaCie 301897KUA User Manual Manual pdf 13 page image

LaCie grand Hard Disk Formatting & PartitioningUser Manual page 13The first time you use your LaCie hard drive, the LaCie Setup As-sistant formats your drive according to your needs. If your needschange, you can reformat your LaCie hard drive to optimize it foruse with Windows or Mac, or for cross-platform use. For example,if you used LaCie Setup Assistant to format your drive to work withyour Mac, but now you want to share your hard disk with Windowsusers, you can reformat it to FAT 32 (MS-DOS) for this purpose. Toreformat your drive, follow the instructions in this section.IMPORTANT INFO: Please copy the User Manual and utilitiesto your computer before reformatting. Reformatting will erase ev-erything from the hard disk. If you have other data that you want toprotect or continue to use, copy this information to your computerbefore reformatting.What is Formatting?When a disk is formatted, the following things occur: the operatingsystem erases all of the bookkeeping information on the disk, teststhe disk to make sure that all of the sectors are reliable, marks badsectors (i.e., those that are scratched) and creates internal addresstables that it later uses to locate information.What is Partitioning?You can also divide the hard disk into sections, called partitions. Apartition is a section of the hard disk’s storage capacity that is cre-ated to contain files and data. For instance, you could create threepartitions on your drive: one partition for your office documents,one as a backup and one for your multimedia files. Or, if you willbe sharing the drive with another person in your household or of-fice, you can create a partition for each person who uses the drive.Partitioning is optional.File System FormatsThere are three different file system format categories: NTFS, FAT 32(MS-DOS), and Mac OS Extended (HFS+). See the table, below, formore information.3. Optional Formatting & PartitioningUse NTFS if......you will be using the drive only with Windows 2000,Windows XP or Windows Vista (performance will generallybe greater when compared to FAT 32). This file systemis compatible in read only mode with Mac OS 10.3 andhigher.Use HFS+ if......you will be using the drive on Macs only; performancewill generally be greater when compared to FAT 32. Thisfile system is NOT compatible with Windows OS.Use FAT 32 (MS-DOS) if......you will be using your drive with both Windows andMac 10.3 or sharing the drive between Windows 2000and Windows XP or Windows Vista. Maximum single filesize is 4GB.