The Data Locker comes preformatted in the NTFS format due to its superior performance, support and capabilities for large capacity hard disk drives.

Windows Users

If you require a drive which can be used on multiple operating systems, you may need to reformat the drive in the FAT32 format. Microsoft has eliminated support for FAT32 formatting for drives over 32GB  so you must use a third party tool for formatting. We recommend Swiss Knife , an excellent free tool by CompuApps.

Apple Users

Apple Mac OS users can read files from an NTFS formatted drive, however thay can not write files to one. Mac OS users must reformat the drive with the FAT32 format in order to read and write to the drive. The native MAC HFS format is also supported, choose this file system if you will only be using the Data Locker on a Mac system.

Linux Users

Linux users may use the Data Locker without reformatting if they they have an NTFS driver installed.

Here is an excellent tutorial explaining how to install the Linux NTFS driver - http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_edgy_eft_ntfs_ntfs_3g

If you can not use NTFS drives you must reformat the drive using the FAT32 format.

Linux native ext2 and ext3 drive formats are currently being tested.

Below is a summary of the key differences between NTFS and FAT32.

NTFS vs FAT32

"Article reprinted with permission of  www.NTFS.com"