erase with zero???

Just curious, the guy at the Apple Store suggested that I erase my new LaCie w/zero. He said it would offer protection?? What does this mean? Thanks.

Yep, that is, if you plan on giving it away.

well he actually said, "...it offers a layer of protection from bad sectors" - so not sure what this means or if it is even needed

code777 said:

well he actually said, "...it offers a layer of protection from bad sectors" - so not sure what this means or if it is even needed

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Well, I guess, you could erase it, but I have never had problems using an external hard drive right out of the box.

When he said erase with zero he probably meant a zero-fill format. Basically fill the entire disk with zeroes to completely wipe whatever was on it before. You should not need to do that on a disk you are using for yourself. That is something you would do if you were to sell your used drive.

If you bought the drive used it might not be a bad idea though. You never know what the previous owner may have left on it.

huh, weird - he just said when you hook it up zero it and then use CCC to clone a bootable back up.

So basically its not needed because its brand new out of the box... still no idea y he suggested that though...

Zeroing out the drive would detect the bad sectors, but I do not believe it would do anything about them.

As I understand it most modern File Systems detect and bypass bad sectors dynamically at write time.

EDIT: Yeah, I would just go straight to CCC. Zeroing the drive should not be necessary.

code777 said:

huh, weird - he just said when you hook it up zero it and then use CCC to clone a bootable back up.

So basically its not needed because its brand new out of the box... still no idea y he suggested that though...

Click to expand...

He probably had a bad experience in the past. I'm sure that he doesn't try to confuse Apple customers. :mac:

or maybe the Genius is overly paranoid?! haha