Seagate EXTERNAL SATA HARD DRIVE QUICK START

External SATA Hard Drive

Quick Start
Guide

Your new Seagate®external SATA hard drive is a
state-of-the-art unit: solid, safe, quiet, cool, versatile
and portable, ready to go from one location to another.
It is an ideal backup device for multiple systems, or
simply a safe and dependable place to store your
important files.

Your new Seagate hard drive kit also includes award­winning BounceBack Express backup software for both
the Microsoft Windows and the Mac operating system.
See page 10 for more information about BounceBack
Express.

Contents

The external SATA hard drive kit includes

• Seagate external hard drive with an eSATA
interface

• A pedestal for vertical drive orientation

• An eSATA cable

• An eSATA PCI card

• An AC-to-DC converter

• A country-specific power cord

• Quick start guide

• The Seagate Disc Utility CD

2 Quick Start Guide

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Power button
operations:

• Press button—LED
comes on
– Power On occurs.

• Press button—LED
shuts off
– Power Down
occurs.

eSATA port

Power connector

Front Back

Power button

and drive activity

LED push button

Caution

If your drive is turned on, don’t move it

You can move your drive safely when the power LED is
OFF. If the power LED is lit when you move your drive,
you risk excessive wear, reduced reliability, and possible
data loss.

Power button operations

• Press the button—LED comes on—
Power On occurs.

• Press the button—LED shuts off—
Power Down occurs.

External Hard Drive 3

Requirements

Windows 2000 Pro or later operating system with:

• An eSATA connector

Macintosh System Mac OS X (or higher) with:

• An eSATA connector

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Hardware setup

For an External SATA kit

1. Plug the AC power adapter into the hard drive
and the wall outlet.

2. Use the eSATA cable to connect the drive to
your computer.

3. Turn on the power to your computer.

4. Press the button on the front of the drive to turn
on the power.

5. See page 5 for Windows OS information, or
page 7 for Macintosh OS information, including
installing drivers, reformatting and partitioning,
and dismounting your drive.

6. See page 10 to install and configure BounceBack
Express software to utilise the backup feature of
your drive.

You don’t need to follow this hardware setup
sequence. Hardware setup steps 1 through 4

are a good way to connect your new drive to your
computer, but you don’t always need to follow this
sequence.

For example, in Windows XP only, if you want to attach
your drive after your computer has already booted, you
can simply connect the interface cable, turn on power
to the drive, and your OS will detect and mount the
drive automatically. This is known as hot-plugging.

In a hot-plug situation, it’s a good idea to connect all
power and interface cables to your drive, and to place
the drive where you want it to remain, before you turn
it on. You should not move your drive once it’s running.

Caution: Windows 2000 Pro does not support
“hot remove.” You must use the “Safely Remove
Hardware” utility prior to disconnecting the drive.

4 Quick Start Guide

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eSATA cable

eSATA connector

Note: You may need
to install a PCI eSATA
host adapter, if your
system does not
have one. Follow the
instructions included
with your host adapter
before connecting the
external SATA drive to
your computer.

Windows OS

Windows XP or 2000 Pro eSATA host bus
adapter (card) installation

Turn off the power to your computer. Open the computer
case. Install the PCI eSATA card in an available PCI slot
on your computer’s motherboard. Make sure the card
is seated firmly in the slot, install the mounting screw,
and tighten down firmly. Close the computer. Turn on
the power to the computer. The “Found New Hardware
Wizard” (or similar utility) will be displayed.

Follow these steps to install the drivers for the new
PCI card:

1. Insert the Seagate Disc Utility CD in CD drive.

2. The Seagate eSATA drive menu will appear: click on

eSATA PCI Card Menu button. If the main menu
does not automatically launch, you can manually
open it by clicking welcome.htm on the CD.

3. Click the Windows drivers/utility button.

4. The eSATA300 TX2 Install Wizard will open. Click

Next.

5. The License Agreement displays. Click the Accept
button, then click Next.

6. Click Install to begin installing the Windows drivers.

Note: Some versions of Windows will display a window warning
that this software has not passed Windows Logo Testing. If this
window appears, click Continue Anyway.

7. When the installation wizard completes installation,
click Finish.

8. Follow the Install Host Adapter Card instructions
on the Quick Installation Guide for eSATA PCI Card
included in this kit.

External Hard Drive 5

How to reformat and/or partition your drive

Your drive is factory formatted for a FAT32 file system
and no further formatting is needed for Windows
operating systems. However, if you are using Windows
2000 Pro or Windows XP and you prefer to use an
NTFS file system, you can reformat with either the
built-in Disk Management application provided by
Microsoft, or the Seagate DiscWizard

™

for Windows
application located in the Files directory of the Seagate
Disc Utility CD.

Caution: Reformatting destroys all data on the drive.
Back up any data that you want to keep before you
reformat the drive. Also, if you reformat to NTFS, you
must always log in to BounceBack Express (see page 10)
as an Administrator to ensure access to your backup files.

Use caution when backing up or copying files protected
by NTFS file permissions. If you are considering
reformatting your external drive to NTFS, any NTFS
security measures normally will be retained. NTFS security
can prevent you from accessing your backups later when
you need to restore. Be sure you can access your files
from other computers before deleting them from their
current location; otherwise, your backup may be unusable
in the event of a system failure.

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What is partitioning?

Partitioning divides
the disc into separate
volumes. It does not
increase the capacity
of the drive. Creating
more than one partition
can be helpful in
organising your infor­mation. For example,
you might use one
volume (partition) to
store your backups
and one volume for
applications or other
information. Each
volume receives its
own drive letter, so
each volume appears
to be a separate disc
drive in Windows
Explorer.