Sundance SMT387-FS - Manual (Page 7)

Hard Disk Drive Preparation
In order to be used with the SMT387 File System Package, a hard disk drive must first be
prepared through a process of partitioning and formatting.
Partitioning
An initial step in the preparation of any hard disk drive is the creation of a standard partition
table on the drive. This is most easily achieved by connecting the drive to a Windows XP
computer, which will offer to write a standard disk label on any drive that does not already
have one. A system reboot is normally required after this operation.
The standard partition table written to a drive can support up to four primary partitions. In
addition, one of these partitions can be an extended partition capable of holding additional
logical partitions.
The SMT387 File System Package supports up to four FAT32 file systems on each of two
physical drives. When partitioning the drive to create these FAT32 file systems, you must
bear the following constraints in mind:
• Partitions greater than around 32GB can be created, read and written under Windows
XP, but not formatted as a file system. In order to use a FAT32 partition larger than
32GB, you can create an unformatted partition under Windows XP and format it using
the smt387fmt utility provided with the SMT387 File System Package. This utility runs
on the SMT387 module, not under Windows XP.
• The SMT387 File System Package supports only primary partitions, not extended
partitions or logical partitions. This limits the system to four partitions per drive.
If you have no other requirements, the simplest configuration for use with the SMT387 File
System Package is to use Windows XP to create a single unformatted partition on the drive,
starting at the beginning of the drive and extending to use all of the drive’s space. Then, use
smt387fmt to format the partition with an appropriate FAT32 file system.
Formatting
The second stage of drive preparation is to format the partition as a FAT32 file system.
When you create a partition under Windows XP, you will be offered the option of formatting
the partition at the same time. If the partition is less than around 32GB, you can select the
following options to create a valid file system for use with the SMT387 File System Package:
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