Summary
Formatting and initializing disks using the iX Controller's Windows system results in higher integrity hard drives with less chance of failure or corruption.
In-Depth
Rather than quick format or format through File Explorer, format via Command Prompt.
In Command Prompt:
- Diskpart
- List Volume
- Select volume X (X being the number of the drive)
- Format fs=ntfs
If the Drives aren't showing up in FIle Explorer, they need to be initialized.
Create Disk Partition – Initialize Disk in controller
1..Open Disk Management with administrator permissions.
To do so, in the search box on the taskbar, type Disk Management, select and hold (or right-click) Disk Management, then select Run as administrator > Yes. If you can't open it as an administrator, type Computer Management instead, and then go to Storage > Disk Management.
2. In Disk Management, right-click the disk you want to initialize, and then click Initialize Disk (shown here). If the disk is listed as Offline, first right-click it and select Online.
Note that some USB drives don't have the option to be initialized, they just get formatted and a drive letter.
3. In the Initialize Disk dialog box (shown here), check to make sure that the correct disk is selected and then click OK to accept the default partition style. If you need to change the partition style (GPT or MBR) see About partition styles - GPT and MBR.
The disk status briefly changes to Initializing and then to the Online status. If initializing fails for some reason, see A disk's status is Not Initialized or the disk is missing entirely.
4.Select and hold (or right-click) the unallocated space on the drive and then select New Simple Volume.
5. Select Next, specify the size of the volume (you'll likely want to stick with the default, which uses the whole drive), and then select Next.
6. Specify the drive letter you want to assign to the volume and then select Next.
7. Specify the file system you want to use (usually NTFS), select Next, and then Finish.
Now the drives should show up in File Explorer. Create folders in the Controller, and delete or Quick Format to delete files.