The weekend I put my new LaCie 1.5 TB drive on line for my Mac, and I’ve got to give a big hand to Peter Krogh and dpBestflow.org for making sure I did it right. It’s a very simple process, but it requires being alert to a few things that I, for one, certainly did not know.
In the “Hard Drive Handling” section of dpBestflow.org (which was written by Krogh), I encountered this:
Putting new drives into service
When you buy new drives, you should do a little preparation to increase the likelihood of trouble-free service. As part of this preparation, it’s a good practice to zero all data on the drive. ‘Zero all data’ means that you write all ones and zeros on the drive, using the formatting tools available for your operating system. Doing this will ensure that every bit on the drive is touched. This will force the drive to do a thorough scan of the volume, find bad sectors and mark them as “off limits.”
This was certainly a best practice I didn’t know about, but it makes really good sense. (Heretofore I just plugged-and-played. Major oops.)
When I my launched Disk Utility to perform this “zeroing out,” I found myself a little perplexed, not exactly sure which settings to set. (Don’t you hate that sense of almost knowing what to do with your computer, but being just a little uncertain.)
Luckily, right below the above text, Krogh provides this super dpBestflow.org video:
These are the the two steps I would have never figured out without Krogh help (applicable to Macs with Intel processors):
• Set “Partition Map Scheme” to “GUID Partition Table” by:
– Hitting the “Partition” tab.
– Setting it to “1 Partition” under “Volume Scheme.”
– Clicking the (now active) “Options” button.
– Selecting the radio button for “GUID Partition Table.”
– Hit “Apply.”
• Set “Security Options” to “Zero Out Data” by, um. . .
– Setting “Security Options” to “Zero Out Data.”
It’s Clearer In the Video
Even writing these simple instructions makes my meager mind spin a bit, which is why it’s so nice to have Krogh take you through the steps in his video. Not only does he show you what I have just told you, but he explains some of his best practices thinking.
A major thanks to Krogh and dpBestflow for helping me handle this critical data practice with ease!
The PC Version
If you are using a PC, I have no doubt Krogh’s information is just as helpful and clear in this dpBestflow.org video: