[BC] Short/cut question?

[Cowboy]

On Thursday 26 February 2009 07:48 pm, Glen Kippel wrote:

>  Yes, it is an IDE drive.  When I replaced a drive last year, the guy at 360
>  Systems said it is possible to just a new drive in, and it will prompt to
>  ask if you want to format it.  Perhaps this is a proprietary format?

 There is no proprietary "format" on an IDE drive, but what file system the
 360 uses is the part I don't remember.

>  Anyway, I have SpotMau Power Suite and can use Clone Magic to clone the
>  drive under Linux, but I wonder if I have to re-format it in the Short/cut,
>  thereby erasing everything on the drive.

 I would "format" a blank, new drive in the 360, then remove it, and copy
 the old onto the new in a comfuser, then reinstall the new drive in the 360.

 There's really no such thing as a "format" on an IDE drive, apart from the
 platter block map the manufacturer does, often called a "low level" format.
 What most call a "format" is really just making the file system on the drive.
 Unless you have means to geometrically locate tracks and sectors physically,
 you don't want to truly format a hard drive.

 You don't really want to clone the drive, as you wouldn't be able to take
 advantage of a larger drive that way. It would end up partitioned
 to the same size as the old drive, which may be OK for you, leaving the
 extra space simply unpartitioned.
 I do remember that the 360 does use an IBM partition schema, as opposed
 to a Sun disklable, for instance.

-- 
Cowboy