WiebeTech DesktopGB+ User Manual

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SOFTWARE DRIVERS.

1)

FIREWIRE USAGE:

FireWire usage with Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, XP, Mac OS 9.1, OS9.2, or Mac OSX. You do
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not need to install any drivers.
FireWire usage with Mac OS 8.6 through Mac OS 9.0.4.
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available from InTech, FWB, Charismac and other companies.

USB USAGE:

USB 1.1 usage with Windows 2000, XP, Mac OS 9.1, Mac OS 9.2 or Mac OSX. You do not
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need to install any drivers from the CD.
USB 1.1 usage with Windows 98SE, ME. You will need to install drivers from the CD.
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USB usage with Mac OS 8.6 through Mac OS 9.0.4. Your machine may have a compatible
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driver already installed. If your drive is recognized by your computer and functions properly, do not
install any drivers. If your drive is not recognized by your computer, you will need to install the
appropriate driver from the CD.
USB 2.0 usage. The USB 1.1 guidelines apply; you will also need to attach to a USB2.0 host port
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AND install USB 2.0 host controller drivers, which are provided by the host controller vendor. As of
this date (May, 2002) these are rare. OrangeMicro sells a USB2.0 compatible host controller for
the Mac. Adaptec and other vendors sell Windows compatible USB2.0 host controllers.

DRIVE FORMATTING.

2)
However, reformatting a drive is occasionally necessary. Formatting is also required for new drives installed
in the enclosure by the user. The following rules apply for unformatted drives:
WiebeTech installed drives are preformatted with DOS.
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operating systems, including Mac OS 9 and X, and all recent versions of Windows (98SE, ME, 2K,
XP). (DOS is called FAT32 on Windows). All you need to do is power the unit up and plug it in via
FireWire or USB. Win98SE and WinME will require that the disk drive be checked as "removable"
before it will be seen on the desktop. This is done by navigating to the disk drives settings window
in the device manager. See below for instructions.
Macintosh usage under OS 8.6 – OS 9.2.2. When an unformatted drive is attached to either a
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FireWire or USB port on the Mac, the Mac OS will ask you if you want to format the drive. Respond
by supplying a volume name and by selecting the formatting methodology. HFS+ (Macintosh
Extended) will provide the highest possible performance on the Mac; DOS format will provide cross
platform compatibility. Warning: the Mac OS occasionally will not reliably place a DOS format onto
the disk drive, especially for capacities of 80GB and higher. This is determined by observing the
indicated capacity after the format is complete. A reformat utility is available from the Mac OS
under "Special
Macintosh usage under OS X. OS X will also ask to format the unformatted drive when it is first
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attached to the computer. OS X also includes a disk utility appropriately entitled: "Disk Utility".
This utility has several different features, including a drive integrity tester, a formatter and a drive
erase menu. As of this date (April, 2003) OSX does not mount PC formatted drives over 127GB
Warning: OS X has occasionally shown extremely slow mount and access times for FireWire
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drives which are formatted with DOS format. If this happens to you, you may wish to reformat the
drive to HFS+. Alternatively, contact WiebeTech for technical support.
D e s k t o p G B + U s e r M a n u a l
DesktopGB+
User Manual
Revised July 2, 2007
Our drives are shipped preformatted with FAT-32 for compatibility reasons.
Erase Disk". This allows reformatting of the drive.
Third party FireWire drivers are
DOS is readable by virtually all
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