Formatting The Hard Drive - Maxtor Installation Manual

Formatting the Hard Drive

This chapter describes how to format and partition your new hard drive using the MaxBlast
Plus II software on a Windows system.
Do not create partitions larger than 137 GB using MaxBlast Plus unless your motherboard,
BIOS, operating system, and ATA host controller properly support 48-bit Logical Block
Addressing (LBA). Creating partitions larger than 137 GB on systems that do not support
48-bit LBA can result in data loss. The Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 PCI Adapter Card fully
supports 48-bit LBA and can be purchased (in the U.S.) from www.maxtordirect.com.
Some newer motherboards with Intel chipsets can be updated to support 48-bit LBA using
the Intel Application Accelerator software available from www.intel.com.
Some tools built into Windows 98/ME, such as Scandisk and Defrag, do not function
properly on hard drive partitions larger than 127 GB. Third-party utilities such as Norton
Utilities 2002 can be used to replace the functionality of Scandisk and Defrag for partitions
larger than 127 GB.
When installing the hard drive on a Macintosh system, format (initialize) and partition
your hard drive using the Apple Drive Setup utility (for classic Mac OS) or the Apple Disk
Utility (for Mac OS X). In order for your Macintosh to recognize the full capacity of an
internal hard drive larger than 137 GB you must use a third-party, Macintosh-compatible,
Ultra ATA/133 PCI adapter card.
Choose from one of the following typical hard drive installation options:
• New system with boot drive installation or replacing a failed boot drive in an existing
system. See "Installing Hard Drive as a Boot Drive" on page 16.
• Existing system with original boot drive and you want to copy all data to the new hard
drive. See "Installing Hard Drive to Replace an Existing Drive" on page 20.
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