formatting a new drive

Good Day

We bought a few new drives. Western Digital 320 gigs, usb (not firewire). I'm backing up the current project on these drives.

Tried to transfer the media last night and it didn't work. Apparently we need to prep the drive for MAC.

My question is this: can we simply re-format the drive for MAC or do we need to "zero the drive out?"

I hope my question is clearly stated. If so, thanks in advance for any help on this one.

SA

no need to zero. thats only a security thing - like unless you zero it, someone COULD go back and unerase your data.

just format mac OS extended non journaled.

thanks for the answer
SA

USB drives for FCP Media is a no-no
BJ

<<<USB drives for FCP Media is a no-no >>>

...unless you're using them for Long Term Storage. In that case, the drive form doesn't make any difference subject to certain formats having troubles with large files. It's only when you try to perform live video in either direction that USB gets in the way


I'm reading something dangerous into one of the comments further up. I don't want to zero out the drive, I just want to change the format."

Changing a drive format will destroy everything on the drive--or at least makes it unusable to you. There's no such thing as changing a drive format around existing data. You must carefully copy all the information into another drive, change the format, then copy the whole thing back.

"Zeroing A Drive" is neither erasing nor formatting. That is a specific process where the System goes through a whole drive and writes nonsense, or "zeros" in every data field. This makes it extraordinarily difficult or impossible to recover data by sifting through the trash left by normal usage or erasing.

OSX is based on UNIX where it's difficult or impossible to recover old data anyway. Zeroing makes it that much more difficult.

Koz

Kozikowski Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> <<>>
>
> ...unless you're using them for Long Term Storage.
> In that case, the drive form doesn't make any
> difference subject to certain formats having
> troubles with large files. It's only when you try
> to perform live video in either direction that USB
> gets in the way
>

Just so I'm clear, USB is suitable to store old projects and clips, just as long as you're not trying to capture to them, correct? Is that what you mean by live video in either direction?

<<<Is that what you mean by live video in either direction?>>>

No. I mean play or record. USB has troubles with streaming data. It wants to stop every often to scratch itself and blow its nose. When it does that, either playback or capture may become damaged.

However, if you just want to park a video or two on a USB drive while you're dusting the credenza, that's just fine. It is a really good idea to move the videos back to another type of drive before you try to play or edit them.

I know you want me to say they play OK, but not capture. Not gunna happen. The stream in either direction may get damaged.

You are going to find people for whom they work OK. That's possible. But the probability for damage goes way up when you use USB drives for live video.

Koz

Thanks Koz, that's what I needed to hear...Much appreciated as always!