Mac provides a "Disk Utilty" application which can be used to reformat an NTFS or other file system formatted cartridge for use with Mac. Select the RDX device on the left side of the screen. Be sure to select the device and not the partition (shown below the device.) See the screenshot below for an example. Mac OS Extended is the default format. The "MS-DOS File System" selection in the "Volume Format" drop-down menu box will format the cartridge FAT32.

Linux FAT32 and EXT2/3 file system formatting support is natively built into the kernel with commands mkdosfs and mke2fs. Linux commands parted or fdisk may be used to partition a cartridge before formatting. GUI based partitioning and formatting tools are available for Linux but vary by distribution. Please check your distributions documentation for more information.

The RDX USB drive will work on Mac OSX systems without any additional driver installation. Simply plug the media storage drive USB into an available USB port. The RDX USB should be able to be accessed through the "Disk Utility" application after plugging in and powering up. (Under the "Finder" application, select Applications->Utilities->Disk Utility.) If using a default (NTFS) formatted cartridge, you will need to reformat for MAC OS Extended (HFS+.

Removable hard disk drive cartridge formatting steps vary based on the operating system used. Links to formatting instructions based on OS are listed below.

Note: Formatting your cartridge NTFS is not typically required. Cartridges are shipped pre-formatted with NTFS. Deleting all files on the disk will be a sufficient method for re-initializing a cartridge in most cases. Two possible cartridge formatting methods exist for Microsoft Windows XP or 2003 installations. The most straightforward method for formatting cartridges in an RDX SATA device is through the right-click format menu.

If the removable disk cartridge does not eject using either the eject button or the right-click eject methods then use the following emergency eject hole method to recover the removable disk cartridge: If using the RDX removable storage drive, turn off your computer. If using the RDX removable storage drive, unplug the power cable. Insert a large straightened paper clip (or similar object) into the Emergency Eject Hole (see the figure above.) Do not insert the object in the hole at an angle.

If your system BIOS supports it, you can create a bootable installation of Linux on your RDX USB media storage drive. For more information, please see the "Booting Linux From RDX" whitepaper.

The write protect switch is the red tab on the top edge of the removable disk cartridge. To set the write protect tab, eject the cartridge and slide the red tab to the leftmost position. The removable disk cartridge will now be write-protected. To remove the write protect, slide the red tab to the rightmost position. The cartridge will now allow write access.

You may be able to boot your Linux distribution from an RDX USB cartridge if the installer supports booting from USB removable disk devices and your system BIOS supports boot to USB devices. Support is available natively with the Fedora 6 installer. Fedora 5 can be made bootable with some workarounds. System BIOS typically does not support boot to SATA ATAPI devices. For this reason boot from the SATA RDX device is not typically supported.

Microsoft Windows OS do not allow boot from removable storage media. Please refer to Microsoft's article at: Current versions of Windows should not be installed to USB hard disk drives because Windows does not support USB hard disk drives as the primary boot device. For instructions on setting up a bootable Linux USB RDX cartridge please see the "Booting Linux from RDX" whitepaper here.

You can create partition/volume and format your disk through Windows Disk Management tools, DOS FDISK/FORMAT, or another 3rd party program like Partition Magic.

long as your kernel is new enough you should not need to modify drivers or kernel to use RDX SATA or USB drives. A few useful Linux commands are listed below. Refer to the man pages for each command for more information. Use the eject command with the device or partition handle to eject the cartridge. When using a default formatted (NTFS) cartridge you will likely need to reformat to EXT3 for use with Linux. Please refer to the instructions here for more information.

The cdrom drives in our lab machines are setup to use the automounter. The automounter will automatically mount the drive for you when you access it, and unmount it when it is not being used. The cdrom will be automatically mounted under /cdrom once you access that directory. You can use most normal Ext2fs (linux) file commands on the cdrom then. Since a cdrom is read-only, commands to write to the device will not work. cd /cdrom

A Hot Spare Disk Cartridge is an additional Disk Cartridge installed in a 3U Server that is immediately available as a replacement if a hard disk drive fails. If an active drive fails, the Server continues to operate, no content or user-entered data is lost, and information that was stored on the failed drive is automatically restored to the hot spare. This eliminates the need for an urgent service call and provides peace of mind in marine and other remote installations.

In your iVisit Settings > Preferences > Video Device Menu make sure the "Recording Device" is set to the correct camera driver. If no driver option appears then reinstall the software that came with the camera and reboot.

There can be a large variation in the storage required from one DVD movie to another, but an "average" DVD movie requires approximately 6.7 gigabytes of storage. Therefore, you can expect to store approximately 112 DVDs on a 750 GB Disk Cartridge and 150 DVDs on a 1 TB Disk Cartridge.

There can be a large variation in the storage required from one CD to another, but an "average" audio CD requires approximately 0.60 gigabytes of storage. Therefore, you can expect to store approximately 1,250 CDs on a 750 GB Disk Cartridge and 1,650 CDs on a 1 TB Disk Cartridge.

When adding a Disk Cartridge to a Server, the amount of storage realized depends on 1) the capacity of the newly installed Disk Cartridge compared to the capacity of the drives already in the array, and 2) whether or not the Server is a 3U Server. A 3U Server behaves differently than a 1U or 5U Server because of its Hot Spare Disk Cartridge.

In Linux disks are named hda, hdb for the first two disk on the first IDE controller and hdc, hdd for the third and fourth disks. SCSI disks are named sda, sdb, etc, in the order they are discovered.

Check question number 6 about startup disks; most people need these because of hard disk problems. Apple provides an "erase disk" option on their main menu which will re-initialize some but not all hard drives. Apple also has a "disk test" utility to test formatted disks. There is also a popular control panel add on for "SCSI probe" which is helpful, check various Mac shareware sites for it.