Formatting EZ Quest drive ?

[imp]

Hi,

I have two EQ Quest drives that I had formatted a long time ago, and they've been working great ever since. I just got a third one, and I cannot for the life of me remember how the heck to properly format it. I first tried to format with the Mac drive set up, but the drive set up lists the Ez Quest as being "not supported" and will not format it. I then opened Speed Tools (the software that comes with the EZ Quest drives), but that software does not seem to be able to find the drive... does not see my other EZ Quest drives either for that matter... BUT, I will mention that I have all my Speed Tools extensions disabled so I am able to run Pro Tools off the EZ Quests.

Perhaps I need to re-enable the Speed Tools extensions just to do the format, and then disable them again later? Or should I not use Speed Tools at all? Is there a trick to being able to format from the Mac Disk Set-up?

Finally, I was able to format my other EZ Quests a ways back and they've been working fine... I very well may have formatted them using Speed tools... but can't remember... finally, I just want to do it right and I do not have time to experiment, so if anyone has the official answer, lay it on me.... thanks.

I did read another post where a user recommended getting some type of other software to do the format... then someone mentioned something about a Pro Tools "ATTO" utility software thing... etc... well, all I know is that in the past when I had formatted my other EZ Quests, I did not use any of these things... I either used the Mac OS or Speed Tools.... and I was successful. Just need to figure out the "best" way.

anyhow.... thanks! -imp

[clutch]

Is this a firewire drive you're talking about?
what happened after you plug the drive in? - or if it is an internal drive - is there a dialog that comes up after you reboot which gives you the option to initialize or eject the drive?
choose initialize.
if the drive appears on the desktop try special-> erase disk from the menu.

[imp]

hi,

It's an EZ Quest Firewire drive. I cannot format it with the Mac drive set-up. Says "unsupported drive".

What I did was re-enable the HDST (Hard Disk Speed Tools) extensions on the computer and formatted the drive using the Speed Tools thing. This seemed to work. I then disabled the HDST extensions, and proceeded to successfully save and run Pro Tools LE sessions directly off this drive.

Here's my BIG concern... in Speed Tools, I chose to format the 120 GB Firewire drive as "mac OS extended"... supposedly, according to the Speed Tools literature, HDST "writes zeros", so I guess this basically means it "zeros all data".

Anyhow, I clicked the format button, and within about a split second of time, the drive seemed to be finished initializing. ?!?!?!?! I tried it again, same thing. The drive indeed acts as if it has been fully initialized in Speed Tools... I don't understand why it only took a split second of time to initialize. Once I fully formatted a 60 GB internal ATA drive zero-ing all data using the Mac drive set-up, and it took something like 15 hours.

So... any comments from anyone? I am a bit scared that my 120 GB drive did not get properly initialized (due to the incredibly short time it took to do so), though it is currently performing excellent. I certainly do not want to have any trouble after I've saved 100 GB of critical data onto it.

Thanks. -imp

[Chico]

When I first got my EZQuest drives, I made the mistake of using the enclosed Hard Disk Speed Tools for formatting. Suddenly, I started getting DAE errors out the wazoo, and found out that HDST is not "ProTools friendly", and makes PT think the drive is full. So whatever you do, don't use that! And if you have loaded it to your hard drive, go into Extensions Manager and disable its extensions.

And just like you, my Mac said the drives were "unsupported". My solution was to use an old, very vanilla drive utility (DiskControl 1.01) that I had left over from a previous drive. It worked like a bandit, and the drives have been happy for almost 2 years.

There are other drivers that will work just as well...you might want to search the archives here to find out what they are.

[imp]

Hi Chico,

Thanks. I did notice one of your earlier posts regarding this subject. since I am unfamiliar with and do not have any other driver programs, I had formatted my EZ Quest with the Speed tools program... and it worked ok... the thing is, I enabled the extensions of HDST, formatted the EZ Quest, then disabled the HDST extensions. I then saved a session onto the EZ Quest and ran it directly off the EZ Quest... and it ran fine, no errors. Perhaps I will experience errors the more I use it, but it seems good so far. I know that if I enable the HDST extensions, Pro Tools will not run at all off the EZ Quest... the moment you press play, the error comes up immediately and you cannot proceed, period.

Anyway, this "vanilla" thing you're talking about... not being very computer literate, I am not familiar with this. Is there some type of modern program that I could go buy that would essentially be the same thing? Or... any other tips on how to obtain the type of thing you're talking about? Also, someone had mentioned a "Pro Tools ATTO" thing which I apparently did NOT get with my 001... I'm going to go look at the Digi site now, I think it was suggested that this may be a free download, but will check now... but I may have a problem since my Mac is not hooked up to the web... I would need to download it via a PC... not sure if I can transfer files between the PC and Mac... tried this once and had problems... etc... an ideas?

Thanks - imp

[Chico]

Glad you got your EZQuest up and running. After you defeat the formatting issues, I think you'll find that it's a great drive for PT.

When I say a "vanilla" driver, that's just a slang term I use for a very plain piece of software without a lot of bells and whistles like HDST has. I've never used Pro Tools ATTO, but I have heard that it works well with most any drive. You could also check around with friends and see if they have any drivers that have worked for them. And you might want to check with the folks at EZQuest (www.ezq.com), or the support people here at Digi and see if they have any suggestions.

On another note, I think it would be to your advantage to hook your Mac up to the net. You're going to want to download ProTools updates from time to time, and if you're using any third party plug ins (like Waves), you'll want to suck down their updates also. Plus, Macs smoke PC's on the net .

Good luck, and remember the words of Hunter S. Thompson....
"audio production is a vast, unfriendly wastland, a plastic hallway where pimps and thieves run free and good men die like dogs. There is also a negative side."
Amen.

[fmckinnon]

Hi Everyone -

DiscControl seems to be the formatting solution of choice for the EZQuest drives, but search the net as I may, I'm unable to find this utility for download - the search reveals articles at MacCentral.Com, which point to a company who makes DiskControl, but there is no way to get it!?

Anyone know where it can be had!?

Thanks in advance,
Fred F. mcKinnon Highest Praise Productions, Inc