[1394] Re: Firewire Formatting Utilities

[jeff chasick]

Format a drive, as in erase data from an existing drive so the drive is
wiped clean of information, or formatting a new drive so that it is HFS or
HFS+ formatted.  When you do a desktop erase drive to format it, what you
are left with is one drive partition which equals the size of the drive
minus some space that is taken up by the disk driver, etc. So an 80G drive
would format out to be like around 76-78G.

Partitioning means creating separate areas on the drive so that one drive
looks like multiple drives (say you have an 80G drive and you want to create
4-20G partitions on the drive so that when you mount the drive, four icons
appear, each being approx 20G in size)

> I guess I am confused by your statement (full text at bottom of page) -
> 
>>> With OS 9.1 or higher you can use the generic FireWire driver that Apple
>>  includes.  You can't partition a drive with it, only format a drive.
> 
> The part- "You can't partition a drive with it, only FORMAT a drive."
> Format a drive with what?
> 
> DaleH
> 
>> Apple has never supported external FireWire devices with Drive Setup under
>> OS 9 - it wasn't until OS X and Disk Utility that Apple included that
>> function in their app.
>> 
>> You can only do a Finder erase disk under OS 9 unless you use a 3rd party
>> app such as FWB or Charismac or Intec Speedtools, etc.
>> 
>> 
>>>>  While we can't recommend any third party driver, we do recommend either
>>>>  using the Apple generic driver in 9.1 (if you do not need to partition a
>>>>  drive), or Disk Utility in OS X.
>>>> 
>>>>  FireWire Depot
>>>>  http://www.fwdepot.com
>>> 
>>>  Thanks for the response.
>>>  I'm sitting in front of an 8600 with OS 9.1 running and Drive Setup
>>>  (2.0.3) open to the drive selection window - but none of my Firewire
>>>  drives are visible.
>>>  Now I'm sitting in front of a G4 with OS 9.2.2 running and Drive
>>>  Setup (2.0.7) open - again none of the Firewire devices are shown.
>>>  Disk First Aid will allow me to test and erase these drives, but they
>>>  are invisible to Drive Setup.
>>>  DaleH
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>>   Back in the SCSI days before Apple's Drive Setup recognized 3rd party
>>>>>   drives, I used FWB's Hard Disk Toolkit on everything that was
>>>>>   external and SCSI.
>>>>> 
>>>>>   Now I have Firewire drives from half a dozen sources asking me to to
>>>>>   format with the distributor's tool of choice - Lacie Silverlining,
>>>>>   Charismac Anubis Utility, APS PowerTools, Intech SpeedTools - each of
>>>>>   which requires installing their own Firewire Support extension to
>>>>>   allow formatting.
>>>>> 
>>>>>   I'd like to be able to format all of my Firewire drives with one
>>>>>   utility. Since FWB is slow on answering via email, I'd like some user
>>>>>   feedback on whether other utilities might work on all Firewire/USB
>>>>>   devices.
>>>>> 
>>>>>  DaleH
>>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>  It is best to settle on a single FireWire driver for compatibility.
>>> 
>>> With OS 9.1 or higher you can use the generic FireWire driver that Apple
>>> includes.  You can't partition a drive with it, only format a drive.
>>> 
>>>  With OS X, Disk Utilities is the way to go.
>>> 
>>>  With OS 9.0 or earlier you have to use a third party driver.
>>> 
>>>  Mixing drivers and formatting drives with different utilities can cause
>>>  problems as not all third party drivers are compatible with each other and
>>>  you may experience read/write errors.
>>> 
>>>  While we can't recommend any third party driver, we do recommend either
>>>  using the Apple generic driver in 9.1 (if you do not need to partition a
>>>  drive), or Disk Utility in OS X.
>>> 
>>>  FireWire Depot
>>> http://www.fwdepot.com
>>> 
> 
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