How to format a new external hard drive
This article explains how to create partitions and format the hard drive in order to prepare your external USB or FireWire drive. Instructions are sorted according to the Operating System. Prior to following the steps as described below, you will have to install the hard drive into your external storage enclosure, connect it to your host computer and turn on the power.
Warning:
Removing partitions and formatting a drive
will destroy all existing data on that particular hard drive! Make sure you have a backup of all your data prior to making any changes to the external drive.
Disclaimer:
Information in this article is subject to change without notice. inXtron does not make any representations or warranties (implied or otherwise) regarding the accuracy and completeness of this document and shall in no event be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. All brand names and product names used in this document are trademarks, or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
Large Partition over 2TB on Windows Vista
In order to prepare a drive with a partition in excess of 2TB, you will need to use the command line interface to clear any previous partitions and then use the Disk Management tool to create a GUID Partition Table.
- Go to Start, select Run, type "cmd" and press the OK button.
- Type "diskpart" to start the DiskPart utility. For more info, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415.
- Type "list disk" to see all the available disks.
- Select the external disk. E.g. "select disk 1".
- Clean the partition by typing "clean" but make sure the correct disk has been selected before you execute the command!
- Right-click on Computer, select Manage and go to Disk Management.
- Right-click on the external disk (e.g. Disk 1) and select Initialize Disk.
- Select the option GPT (GUID Partition Table) and press the OK button.
- Right-click on the Unallocated space and select New Simple volume….
- Follow the Partition Wizard to create a new primary partition and format the drive. We recommend using the NTFS file system.
Mac OS X
The tool used to format the drive is the so called Disk Utility. You can find it inside the Utilities folder.
- Start the Disk Utility, which can be found inside the Utilities folder.
- Select your external drive and prepare it according to your requirements. In general, we recommend to create 1 Partition and format it using the Mac OS Extended file system. If you intend to use the drive on other Operating Systems, especially on Windows, we recommend using the MS-DOS file system instead.
- Close the Disk Utility after you are finished and your new drive will be ready and available to use on your desktop.
Apple Partition Map on Mac OS 10.5
If the formatting process as seen under Mac OS X has failed but the drive can be successfully formatted on a PC or another computer, try following procedure instead.
- Start the Disk Utility and select the external drive.
- Choose 1 Partition from the volume scheme and then click on Options.
- Select the Apple Partition Map option and click OK.
- Apply these settings to format the drive. After successfully formatting it, create as many partitions as you like and feel free to go back to Options to select a different partition scheme.
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