DiscWizard can be used not only to format ATA and SATA drives, but external Seagate drives connected to the computer through USB, Firewire, or eSATA as well. Though the setup procedure is almost the same as that used with internal drives, you want to be aware of a few of things:
- Unlike previous versions of DiscWizard, in addition to being able to use DiscWizard for Windows to set up an external hard drive, you can now also use the bootable version of DiscWizard for the same purpose.
- The external drive(s) can be identified by its interface type, which is listed in the “Interface” column of the Add New Disc Wizard.
- DiscWizard can only be used in Windows 2000, XP, and Vista. For Windows 98 and Me, you will need to use FDISK and FORMAT instead.
- Because their connections have slower sustained transfer rates than internal ATA and SATA connections, partitioning and formatting USB and Firewire hard drives may take longer than usual.
- All other step are the same that you would see when preparing an internal hard drive.