Specifications

Appendix A: Connecting SCSI Drives 83
General Hard Drive
Maintenance
Formatting Drives
There are two different types of formatting:
high-level formatting and low-level formatting.
High-Level Formatting (Initialization)
High-level formatting, or initializing a drive re-
places the drive’s directory, volume partition
map and drivers. Information about the drive is
created and drivers that communicate this in-
formation to the host CPU are installed. The
drive itself is not erased, nor is verification per-
formed.
When is High-Level Formatting Necessary?
It is generally necessary to high-level format a
hard drive in one of the following cases:
◆ If a new drive is being prepared for use on a
computer for the first time and the drive is not
already high-level formatted.
◆ If you suspect that the directories containing
the drive’s information have become corrupted.
◆ If a drive is being changed from one platform
to another. For example if you are switching
from a Macintosh to a Windows-based system,
or from a Windows to a Macintosh-based sys-
tem, the drive must be high-level re-formatted
for the new operating system.
Low-Level (Physical) Formatting
Low-level formatting means completely erasing
the hard drive and rewriting each sector address
on the drive. In low-level formatting, the sector
and track addresses, error-correction codes, and
other details are written on the platters of the
hard drive in the form of a magnetic pattern. A
low-level format permanently erases all data on
the drive.
When is Low-Level Formatting Necessary?
Virtually all hard drives come pre-formatted
from the manufacturer. Low-level formatting is
generally unnecessary except in rare circum-
stances. They are:
◆ If you want to change the Block Size of the
drive. This is not recommended by Digidesign.
Digidesign systems only recognize 512-byte
blocks.
◆ If you want to perform permanent deletion of
data.
◆ If you want to clean a drive that is being mi-
grated from one operating system to another
(for instance, from UNIX to Macintosh).
Should you decide low-level formatting is neces-
sary, keep in mind that it can take up to three
hours or more (depending on the size of the
drive). Avoid power interruptions and computer
bus resets during the format operation or per-
manent damage to the drive could occur. In ad-
dition, leave the drive powered on for at least 30
minutes prior to formatting so that the drive has
time to make any necessary thermal adjust-
ments or recalibrations.
If using Macintosh drives on Windows sys-
tems, refer to“Using Macintosh Drives on
Windows Systems” on page 85.
Digidesign does not recommend low-level
formatting.