LaCie hard disk MAX
• DESIGN BY NEIL POULTON
Formatting & Partitioning
User Manual
page 13
The first time you use your LaCie hard disk MAX, the LaCie Setup
Assistant formats your drive according to your needs. If your
needs change, you can reformat your LaCie hard disk MAX to
optimize 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, but now you want to share
your hard disk with Windows users, you can reformat it to FAT
32 (MS-DOS) for this purpose.
IMPORTANT INFO:
Please copy the User Manual and
utilities to your computer before reformatting. Reformatting will
erase everything from the hard disk. If you have other data that
you want to protect or continue to use, copy this information to
your computer before reformatting.
What is Formatting?
When a disk is formatted, the following things occur: the operat-
ing 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 disk MAX is preformatted in FAT 32 (MS-DOS)
format. To reformat your drive, follow the instructions in this sec-
tion.
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
created to contain files and data. For instance, you could cre-
ate 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 office, you can create a partition for each person
who uses the drive. Partitioning is optional.
File System Formats
There are three different file system format categories: NTFS,
FAT 32 (MS-DOS), and Mac OS Extended (HFS+). See the ta-
ble, below, for more information.
Use NTFS if...
...you will be using the drive only with Windows 2000,
Windows XP or Windows Vista (performance will gener-
ally be greater when compared to FAT 32). This file
system is compatible in read only mode with Mac OS
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 10.3 or sharing the drive between Windows 2000
and Windows XP or Windows Vista. Maximum single
file size is 4GB.
3. Optional Formatting & Partitioning
