LaCie Ethernet Disk mini Manual - Using Your Lacie Drive

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Using Your LaCie Drive

3. Using Your LaCie Drive

Formatting a disk consists of the following: 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.

As you format the drive, you will have the opportunity to divide the hard

drive into sections, called partitions. A partition is a section of the hard

drive’s storage capacity that is created to contain files and data.

Once formatted, the actual available storage capacity varies, depending on

operating environment, and is generally about 10% less than the non-for-

matted capacity.

File System Formats

There are three different file system formats that are predominately found in

Mac and Windows environments:

•Mac OS Extended (HFS+) - for Mac OS 9.x and Mac OS 10.x

•NTFS - for Windows 2000 and XP

•FAT 32 - for Windows Me and legacy operating systems

teCH note: 

Windows Users! 

This LaCie Hard Drive is for-

matted for the Mac operating 

system, and you will need to re-

format the drive in order for it to 

appear and operate under the 

Windows operating system. 

Important note:

If you 

will be using this drive between 

Mac and Windows operating 

environments, you can create 

two partitions: one 32gB FAT 32 

volume, and one large Mac OS 

Extended volume. There are cer-

tain limitations to this configura-

tion, though; to achieve the best 

performance and reliability, it is 

recommended that you utilize a 

third-party utility, such as Medi-

afour’s MacDrive, which allows 

Windows computers to read and 

write files on a volume formatted 

for the Mac.

Mac Users

• If you will be using the drive in a strictly Mac

OS environment, leave the drive formatted as one

large Mac OS Extended volume.

• If you want to be able to install multiple Mac

operating systems on the LaCie Drive, partition the

drive into multiple Mac OS Extended volumes.

Windows Users

• If you will be using this drive between Windows 98SE, Me, 2000

and/or XP environments, it is recommended that you create two

partitions: one that is a 32GB FAT 32 (MS-DOS File System) volume,

and the other as a large NTFS volume.

• If you will be using the drive in a strictly Win 2000/XP environ-

ment, create one large NTFS volume.