LaCie Little Big Disk Quadra User Manual

Also see for Little Big Disk Quadra: User manual Quick install guide Datasheet

LaCie Little Big Disk Quadra User Manual Manual pdf 19 page image

LaCie Little Big Disk Quadra • Design by neil Poulton Optional Formatting and PartitioningUser Manual page 193. Optional Formatting and PartitioningThe first time you use your LaCie hard disk, LaCie Setup Assis-tant formats your drive according to your needs. If your needschange, you can reformat your LaCie Hard Disk to optimize itfor use with Windows or Mac, or for cross-platform use. Forexample, if you used LaCie Setup Assistant to format your driveto work with your Mac (HFS+), but now you want to shareyour hard disk with Windows users, you can reformat it toFAT 32 (MS-DOS) for this purpose.You may need to format your LaCie hard disk if LaCie SetupAssistant was interrupted or stopped. If the hard disk does notappear in My Computer (Windows) or on the desktop (Mac), itmay not be formatted properly.What is Formatting?When a disk is formatted, the following things occur: the op-erating system erases all of the bookkeeping information onthe disk, tests the disk to make sure that all of the sectors arereliable, marks bad sectors (i.e., those that are scratched) andcreates internal address tables that it later uses to locate infor-mation. A hard disk must be formatted before it can be usedto store data.What is Partitioning?You can also divide the hard disk into sections, called parti-tions. A partition is a section of the hard disk’s storage capacitythat is created to contain files and data. For instance, you couldcreate three partitions on your drive: one partition for your of-fice documents, one as a backup and one for your multimediafiles. Or, if you will be sharing the drive with another person inyour household or office, you can create a partition for eachperson who uses the drive. Partitioning is optional.IMPORTANT INFO: Please copy the User Manual andutilities to your computer before reformatting. Reformat-ting will erase everything from the hard disk. If you have otherdata that you want to protect or continue to use, copy this infor-mation to your computer before reformatting.File System FormatsThere 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 isbest for you.Use 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 system iscompatible in read only mode with Mac OS X 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 and MacOS X 10.3 or sharing the drive between Windows 2000and Windows XP or Windows Vista. Maximum single filesize is 4GB.