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Formatting the Drive
in Windows 98SE or Me
1. Disable any anti-virus software you may have running in
the background.
2. Double-click on the My Computer icon. In the My
Computer window you should see an icon and drive let-
ter for the AcomData Drive. (If you are not sure which
icon represents the External Hard Drive, turn off the Drive
and see which icon disappears. Then turn the Drive back
on and wait for the icon to reappear.)
3. Right-click on the drive letter and select Format. In the
Format window, verify the Drive’s capacity; it should be
close to the stated capacity of your Drive in megabytes.
4. Under Format type, select Full; everything else should be
left at the default setting. In the Label field under Other
options you may assign a name to the Drive. You should
give the drive a unique name that will allow you to easily
distinguish it from other hard drives or storage devices.
(The name you assign is limited to 8 characters and no
symbols are allowed.)
5. Click Start. The following warning message will appear:
“This device is either a hard disk or a large removable
disk. Formatting it will destroy all files currently on the
drive. Are you sure you want to format this drive?” If no
data was previously written to the Drive or you already
backed up the data you wish to keep, click OK.
6. If you see a warning from an antivirus program, click
Exclude.
7. When formatting is complete, you will be asked to run a
thorough Scandisk. Periodically running Scandisk is a part
of regular hard drive maintenance. If you do not wish to
run Scandisk at this time, close the Format window.
Formatting the Drive
in Windows 2000 or XP
1. Disable any anti-virus software you may have running in
the background.
2. Double-click on My Computer/Explorer. In the My
Computer/Explorer window you should see the icon and
drive letter for the AcomData Drive. (If you are not sure
which drive letter represents the AcomData Drive, turn it
off and see which one of the icons disappears. Then turn
on the Drive and wait for the drive letter to reappear.)
3. Right-click on the drive letter and select Format… in the
pop-up menu. The Format dialog box will appear.
4. Under Capacity, verify the Drive capacity. It should be
close to the stated capacity of your Drive in gigabytes.
5. In the File System pop-up menu, select NTFS. Do not
select FAT32 as you cannot format the Drive using the
FAT32 file system on Windows 2000 or XP.
6. In the Allocation unit size pop up, select “Default alloca-
tion size.”
6. In the Volume label field, type in a name for the Drive. You
should give the drive a unique name that will allow you
to easily distinguish it from other hard drives or storage
devices.
7. The default formatting option is Full format, however
under Format options you can select Quick Format. A
Full format will take about 30-90 minutes. A Quick format
will take just a few minutes, but will do less verifying of
the Drive than a Full format will. Do not check Enable
Compression.
8. Click Start. Once the format process is complete, the Drive
will be ready to use.
