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8
Formatting the drive in
Windows Hosts
1. Open the disk management console. A list of the attached drives
and their respective volumes will appear. Select the Black Diamond
Disk.
The Disk Management Console can be accessed by right-
clicking on the "My Computer" icon (
"Manage" from the drop down menu. Disk Management
is found under "Storage" in the resultant window. For an
illustrated guide, please see
http://www.fantomdrives.com/helpdesk/faq.php
2. Right-click on the drive letter and select Format in the pop-up
menu. The Format dialog box will appear.
If the hard disk is not signed for use, the New Partition option
is
unavailable
(superimposed
no-entry icon). In this case a
signature can be written on the
hard drive by right clicking on
the disk description window and
selecting "Initialize Disk".
3. Under Capacity, verify the drive capacity. It should be close to
the stated capacity of your drive in gigabytes.
4. In the File System pop-up menu, select NTFS. The default
formatting option is full format. A full format will fully verify the
disk media. A Quick format is quick, but will do less verifying of
the drive than a full format. Click Start. Once the format process
is complete, your external hard drive is ready to use.
5. In Windows XP and Vista, it is possible to optimize the drive
for performance or quick removal. To select your desired mode,
open the device manager (located in \Windows\System32\
devmgmt.msc on your system drive.) Right-click Fantom Disk in
Disk drives, and select properties. Select the Policies Tab near
the top left of the window, and click your desired optimization
level. Press OK when finished, and you may close the disk
management applet.
Optimizing Windows Caching Algorithm
By default, Windows Vista/7 optimize disk caching for quick
removal. This is done to assure data integrity in case of
disconnection, but as a result the drive will appear to be slower
then on older/different operating systems. To change Windows'
caching algorithm, open the disk management console (as
described on page 8) on your system drive. A list of the attached
drives and their respective
) and selecting
volumes
Right-click on the Fantom
external disk in the disk
list and select properties.
Select the Policies Tab
near the top left of the
window, and click your
desired optimization level.
press OK when finished,
and you may close the
disk management applet.
Optimizing for performance can greatly enhance the
throughput of your disk but is much more vulnerable to
data loss! Make sure to have appropriate backup strategies
before enabling this feature!
will
appear.
9
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