[X4U] New Drive: Simple reformat enough?

[Randy B. Singer]

On Dec 15, 2008, at 5:58 PM, zapcat wrote:

> I just got a couple of new external Drives, which come formatted  
> for PC. before I use them, I will reformat them for Mac of course,  
> but is the simple reformatting good enough, or do I need to write  
> Zeros to these discs first?

No, you do not need to write zeros to the drive.  Previously folks  
did this to map out bad blocks on the drive, but with modern drives  
you don't need to do this manually because it is accomplished  
automatically on the fly.

However, you do need to do a bit more than simply reformat your new  
drive.  In the Bombich Forums is an excellent post on how to properly  
prepare your external HD before you use it:
http://forums.bombich.com/viewtopic.php?t=4084

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
___________________________________________