Portable External Hard Drive
Quick Start
Guide
2
Quick Start Guide
Contents
• Seagate external hard drive
with a USB 2.0 interface
• USB 2.0 ‘Y’ cable
• Quick Start Guide
• Seagate Extra Value CD
Requirements
Windows
• Windows XP
• Windows 2000 Pro
• Windows Me
• Windows 98SE
Macintosh
• Macintosh System 9.2.2
(or later) or Mac OS X
Your new Seagate
®
portable hard drive enables
you to easily add disc space to your laptop
or desktop system, and the convenient size
enables you to take the drive with you. Plus,
connecting it couldn’t be easier—in most cases,
you can just plug it in. You will be ready to go
within seconds!
Setup
Your Portable External Hard Drive
comes with a special USB cable.
This cable is shaped like the letter
‘Y’ with one USB connector on
one end of the cable and two
connectors at the other end of the
cable. This cable supplies power
to the drive and handles the data
going between the drive and your
computer—this means you don’t
have any other cables to connect.
1. Connect one end of the
USB ‘Y’ cable to your Portable
drive and the connector end
labelled “Data + Power” to any
one of the USB ports on your
computer. The drive does not
have a power switch, so if
your computer is powered on,
the drive will begin spinning
as soon as you connect it to
your computer.
Note: If your computer does not supply
enough power to the drive through the
one USB “Data + Power” connector, plug
in the unused connector on the ‘Y’ cable
to another USB port on your computer
(or a powered USB hub). This additional
connection may be needed to provide
additional power to the drive and is only
required if connecting the “Data + Power”
connector alone does not power up
the drive.
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Portable External Hard Drive
USB 1.1 connectors
only support transfer
rates of 12 Mbits/sec.
This is not ideal for disc
drives. To take advantage
of the speed of this disc
drive, connect it to a
computer that supports
high-speed USB 2.0.
High-speed USB 2.0
supports transfer rates
up to 480 Mbits/sec
(40 times faster than
USB 1.1).
Note. A DC receptacle is
available near the USB
connector on the
portable hard drive to
enable the use of an
external DC power supply. This power supply
may be used to provide
necessary power to the
portable hard drive in the
event an extra USB port
is not available or the
USB port(s) don’t provide
enough power. See page
22 for specifications.
C0433
Power
+ Data
Data +
Power
Power
Power
Only
C0433
Power
+ Data
Data +
Only
Power
Power
Only
2. See below for Windows OS
information, or page 7 for
Macintosh OS information.
These sections provide
instructions about how to:
• Install drivers
• Reformat and partition the drive
• Dismount the drive
Installing drivers and reformatting
are steps you only need to do
one time. After that, you can use
the drive by just connecting the
USB cable.
Windows OS
Installing drivers for your
operating system (OS)
Windows XP/2000 Pro/Me
operating systems have built-in,
up-to-date drivers for a USB
interface. You don’t need to install
any drivers if you are using one of
these operating systems, but make
sure you have downloaded and
installed the latest service packs
from Microsoft to ensure that you
have the latest drivers available
for your OS.
Note. Certain OEM installations of
Windows Me call for a file named
USBNTMAP.SYS while attempting to
load drivers for the portable drive. This
file can be located on the Windows Me
installation or recovery CD in the
WIN9x\BASE2.CAB folder.
Windows 98SE: When you connect
the drive to your computer,
Windows 98SE displays the Add
New Hardware wizard. This means
the wizard needs to find the USB
drivers included on the Seagate
Utility Toolkit CD. Follow these
steps to install the drivers:
1. Insert the Seagate Utility
Toolkit CD in your computer’s
CD-ROM drive.
2. Click the Next button. The
wizard displays a screen with
two options.
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Quick Start Guide
3. Select the Search for the best
driver for your device option.
The wizard displays four
check boxes.
4. Select the CD-ROM and Specify
location options. Locate the
drivers in the Drivers USB
Win98 directory.
5. Click the Next button. The
wizard installs the appropriate
drivers on your computer and
tells you when it has finished.
6. Click the Finish button to
complete the installation.
7. Restart your computer. Your
new drive is ready to use.
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
Extra Value CD.
Caution. Reformatting destroys all data on
the drive. Back up any data that you want
to keep before you reformat the drive.
To use the Disk
Management application:
1. Click Start, click Run, type
compmgmt.msc, and then
click OK.
2. In the console tree, click
Disk Management. The Disk
Management window appears.
Your discs and volumes
are displayed.
3. Right-click on the drive you want
to reformat (or partition) and use
the options provided to reformat
or partition the drive.
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Portable External Hard Drive
To use the DiscWizard for Windows
application, launch the DiscWizard
for Windows application in the
Files directory on the Seagate
Extra Value CD and follow the
easy-to-use, on-screen instructions.
Data-sharing between
Windows and Macintosh
systems
Seagate does not recommend
that you use your external hard
drive to share data between
Windows and Macintosh
operating systems. This is
primarily due to all of the variables
in OS types and versions, formats
and partitions, interfaces, and
third-party connectivity software
packages. If you absolutely must
use your external hard drive to
share data between Windows
and Macintosh systems, initialize
your drive (before you use it!) for
a Macintosh OS, as described
below, and then purchase and
install—on your Windows system—
available third-party software that
allows your Windows system to
read from and write to a drive that
is formatted for a Mac OS.
Caution. Do not leave your drive in its
pre-formatted FAT32, single partition
condition if you intend to transfer data
between Mac and Windows systems.
Doing so will result in data loss.
Dismounting your drive
with Windows OS
Caution. Never physically disconnect any
cable attached to the drive when the drive
LED indicates disc activity—doing so will
probably result in data loss.
How to dismount and
disconnect the drive
1. Close all windows and quit all
running applications that are
stored on the drive or that are
using data stored on the drive.
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Quick Start Guide
2. Click the icon in your system
tray that represents the Safely
Remove Hardware function,
and then select the Seagate
external drive.
Note. The system tray is the area in the
lower right portion of your desktop near
the clock.
Windows OS displays a message
when it is safe to disconnect the
USB cable.
Macintosh OS
Format (initialize) for
Macintosh OS
Your new Seagate external hard
drive is factory-formatted with a
FAT32 file format. Although your
Macintosh operating system may
recognize and mount your new
drive with this format, FAT32 is
not recommended for use with
a Macintosh OS. You must
format your drive using one
of the Mac OS format types
before you use it with your
Macintosh operating system.
Reformatting takes only a few
seconds using Apple’s Disk Utility,
which comes with your Mac OS.
Caution: Formatting destroys all data on
the drive. If you have data that you want to
keep, back up the data before formatting
the drive. Seagate is not responsible for
lost data.
How to reformat and/or
partition your drive
1. Open Disk Utility, which is
located in Applications/Utilities.
In Mac OS 9, this utility is named
Drive Setup.
2. Select the disc that you want
to reformat and/or partition
in the left column. Be sure to
select the new drive, and not
an existing drive that may contain
data, because reformatting
and/or partitioning erases all
data on the selected drive.
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Portable External Hard Drive
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 organizing yo ur
information. For example,
you might want 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.
3. Click Partition if you want to
partition your drive into multiple
volumes, or click Erase to
reformat the drive as one volume.
Partitioning is not required; if you
select Partition, continue to the
next step. For Erase, you’re
done!
4. Choose the number of
partitions from the Volume
Scheme pop-up menu. Click
each partition and enter a name,
select a format, and enter a
size for each partition. (You can
also drag the partitions to change
the size.) Select the Mac OS
Extended format for each
partition unless you have a
specific need to select any other
available Volume Format option.
5. Click Partition, and then click
Partition again. Your drive
appears on your desktop with the
volume label(s) you entered in the
steps above. If you elected to
partition the drive to create two
or more volumes, each volume
will have a drive icon and label.
Sharing data between
Windows and Macintosh
systems
Seagate does not recommend that
you use your external hard drive to
share data between Windows and
Macintosh operating systems.
This is primarily due to all of the
variables in OS types and versions,
formats and partitions, interfaces,
and third-party connectivity
software packages. If you absolutely
must use your external hard drive
to share data between Windows
and Macintosh systems, initialize
your drive (before you use it!) for a
Macintosh OS, as described above,
and then purchase and install—on
your Windows system—available
third-party software that allows
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Quick Start Guide