Formatting Hard Drives in External Enclosures
This article shows different ways how to format and setup your hard drive (create a partition), if installed in an external enclosure connected through USB or Firewire. Explanations are separated by Operating System, first PC (Microsoft Windows), then Mac OS.
Prior to the steps below, you will have to install the hard drive (Jumper Settings to "Master" or "Factory Default"), prepare your enclosure, connect it to your host computer and turn on the power and device.
Be aware that this will destroy all your existing data on the hard drive, so make sure you have a backup! These steps are usually only required the first time you install the hard drive, if you have a factory new hard drive or if you want to change the partition or format.
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Quick link to Win2000 & WinXP
Quick link to Mac OS
Windows 98SE & Windows ME |
| The tool used here is the so called 'DOS command prompt' and 'fdisk'. You can find this by going to 'Start/Program Files/Accessories' and click on "MS-DOS" or you can use the 'Run' application and directly type 'fdisk'. |
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| (1) The first window will be the blank MS-DOS command window. Type 'fdisk' without the '' marks and press 'Enter'. Skip this step if you typed 'fdisk' directly into the 'Run' application. |
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| (2) Select 'Y' to enable the large disk support and press 'Enter'. |
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| (3) Enter '5' to change the current disk drive and press 'Enter' |
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(4) Select the drive you want to install and format, in this example disk '2' but note that this may vary from your setup!
Remark: If you can not see the external hard drive at this point, please check your jumper settings, cable connection, power supply and if required, the driver installation.
For 3.5" Hard Drives, you can also connect the drive directly to your internal IDE bus if you encounter problems with the external drive and install it later after formatting. |
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(5) Choose '1' to create a primary DOS partition and follow the onscreen instructions. After you have created the partitions according to your requirement, close the MS-DOS command prompt by typing 'exit' and press 'Enter'. |
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(6) Restart your Computer and then go to 'My Computer'. The new drive should appear and you will be prompted to format it after double clicking on the drive icon. Choose FAT32 and full format, type a name and format the drive.
Your external drive is now ready to use!
Note: FAT32 can be used on most Operating Systems including Win98SE, WinME, Win2000, WinXP, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X and Linux Systems. |
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| See next page for Win2000, WinXP and Mac OS --> |
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Copyright and Web Design © 2004 by Macpower Peripherals Ltd.
Last modified on January 08, 2004
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Windows 2000 & Windows XP |
| The tool used here is the so called 'Disk Management' application. You can find this by right clicking on 'My Computer', then choosing 'Manage' and 'Disk Management'. The alternative is to go to 'Start/Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management'. |
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| (1) Select 'My Computer', right click on it and choose 'Manage'. |
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(2) Select 'Disk Management'
Remark: If you can not see the external hard drive at this point, please check your jumper settings, cable connection, power supply and if required, the driver installation.
For 3.5" Hard Drives, you can also connect the drive directly to your internal IDE bus if you encounter problems with the external drive and install it later after formatting. |
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| (3) Choose the drive you want to install and right click on it for further commands. Click on the gray field on the left side to initialize the drive or click on the empty field on the right side to create a partition. |
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| (4) Follow the Partition Wizard and setup the hard drive according to your requirement. |
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| (5) Go to 'My Computer'. The new drive should appear and you will be prompted to format it after double clicking on the drive icon if you didn't do that already during the partition process. Choose FAT32 or NTFS and format the drive.
Your external drive is now ready to use!
Note: FAT32 can be used on most Operating Systems including Win98SE, WinME, Win2000, WinXP, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X and Linux Systems. The only restriction if formatted on Win2000 or WinXP is, that the largest size for a single partition has to be 32GB or smaller. To create a single partition larger then 32GB (using FAT32) has to be done on WinME (see first page).
NTFS can only be used on Win2000 or WinXP. There is no size restriction for NTFS, you can create a single partition even for large drives over 200GB (this might take a while!). |
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Copyright and Web Design © 2004 by Macpower Peripherals Ltd.
Last modified on January 08, 2004
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Mac OS |
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The Operating Systems prior to OS X do not support creating multiple partitions on an external hard drive. If this is required, we recommend to:
- Connect the hard drive on the internal IDE bus
- Use Mac OS X to create the partitions
- Purchase a third party software supporting these features
- Upgrade to Mac OS X
The tool used under Mac OS X is the so called 'Disk Utility'. You can find this inside the 'Utilities' folder. |
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| (1) Open the 'Disk Utility' application inside the 'Utilities' folder. |
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(2) Choose your external drive and format it according to your requirements.
Remark: If you can not see the external hard drive at this point, please check your jumper settings, cable connection, power supply and extensions.
For 3.5" Hard Drives, you can also connect the drive directly to your internal IDE bus if you encounter problems with the external drive and install it later after formatting. |
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(3) Close the 'Disk Utility' after you are finished and your new drive will appear on the desktop, ready to use!
Note: Mac OS extended can only be used with Macintosh Operating Systems. If you plan on transferring data across different platforms to a PC, we recommend you to format the drive on a PC using FAT32.
Creating two partitions on a PC with FAT32 and then later formatting one on the Mac with Mac OS extended is not possible! If you change the partitions on the Mac, they will not be recognized anymore by the PC. |
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Copyright and Web Design © 2004 by Macpower Peripherals Ltd.
Last modified on January 08, 2004
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