LaCie Little Disk
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Formatting & Partitioning
User Manual
page 14
TECHNICAL INFORMATION:
The LaCie hard drive is preformat-
ted in FAT-32 (MS-DOS) format, optimized for use with Mac and
Windows OS. See File System Formats, below for explanations of the
other possible file formats.
IMPORTANT INFO:
Reformatting will erase everything from the
hard drive. If you have information that you want to protect or con-
tinue to use, back up this information 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.
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.
3. Optional Formatting and Partitioning
The first time you use your LaCie Little Disk, LaCie Setup As-
sistant formats your drive according to your needs. If your
needs change, you can reformat your LaCie Little 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 Little Disk if LaCie Setup As-
sistant 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 operating
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. Your LaCie Hard Drive is preformatted
in FAT-32 (MSDOS) format. To reformat your drive, follow the instruc-
tions in this section.
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 cre-
ated to contain files and data. For instance, you could create 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 of-
fice, you can create a partition for each person who uses the drive.
Partitioning is optional.
