Specifications

Appendix A: Connecting SCSI Drives 85
Optimizing (Defragmenting) Drives
To prevent fragmentation, you can optimize
your drive, which rearranges your files into a
contiguous format. Most optimizing software
lets you run a check on a drive to find out the
percentage of fragmentation. If your drive
shows moderate to heavy fragmentation, you
should consider optimizing it.
If you use your system for intensive editing, or if
you frequently delete audio or fade files from
your hard drive, you may need to optimize your
drives on a weekly basis, or even every few days,
since it doesn’t take long for even a large hard
drive to become fragmented.
Backing Up Data Before Optimizing
Since your files will be rewritten by the optimi-
zation process, always make a backup copy of
the data on your hard drive before you optimize
it. You should also use a hard drive utility to
find and repair any problems before optimizing
data. If there is any damage to your hard drive's
directories prior to optimizing, serious data loss
may result.
Using Macintosh Drives on
Windows Systems
Pro Tools for Windows lets you record and play
back sessions directly from a Macintosh-format-
ted (HFS or HFS+) drive connected to a Windows
system. This functionality requires that all Mac-
intosh session and audio files be stored on Mac-
intosh-formatted drives.
To mount HFS or HFS+ drives on a Windows sys-
tem, you must use the MacOpener
™
software
utility by DataViz. An installer for the demo ver-
sion of MacOpener is included as an installation
option for Pro Tools.
Installing the MacOpener Utility
To Install MacOpener:
1 Quit Pro Tools if it is open.
2 Locate the macopener executable (.exe) file on
the Pro Tools Installer CD-ROM and double-
click it to launch the installer.
3 Follow the on-screen instructions to install
MacOpener.
4 When installation is complete, restart your
computer.
For details on sharing sessions between
Macintosh and Windows systems, see the
Pro Tools Reference Guide.