Yesterday I received the ministation HD-PF320U2 I ordered on Amazon. In the user manual it is recommended to reformat the drive in NTFS but doesn't provide much information on how to do it. I launched disk formatter. Disk formatter only offers the possibility to format in FAT formats. Not doing what to do, I clicked on "Physical format". It has been formatting for the last 1084 minutes (over 18 hours...). When is this going to end? How long does it normally takes to do a physical format?
Is there a better and faster way to get out of this mess? What is the correct way to do a NTFS format?
All this should be explained clearly in the user manual... Shame on Buffalo for not being able to provide clear information.
I received a reply from Buffalo explaining that NTFS is a proprietary Microsoft file format and that instead of using disk formatter I should have connected the ministation to a windows computer and then go to 'Start' > 'Run' and then type: CONVERT E: /FS:NTFS
This tells me what I should have done; it doesn't tell me what I should do now to get out of this mess: disk formatter is still formatting my ministation: 38 hours and counting.... How many more days or weeks should I wait????? Or should I consider the ministation as lost beyond repair and throw it away????
Anybody can help? How long does a physical format normally last????
After a few days, there was a thunderstorm so I decided to switch off my PC.
After the storm, I switched my PC back on and formatted the disk with NTFS using Microsoft disk management.
I must say Buffalo support was pretty much useless in helping sorting out this issue. To start with, the user manual should have clearly explained all this.
I am now using the ministation and it is really great. Shame that such as great product comes with such a crappy user manual... Come on guys, if you invest all this money and time to develop such a great product, take the time it needs to write a great manual.
You were lucky then.
Thank god, but my format finished after 16 hours.
I have also started a physical format for my new Buffalo Ministation 250GB and it is taking a long time too. Since what I really want to do is to format it with NTFS, is it possible to cancel the physical format?
Thanks for any suggestions.
Hi, i do have a new ministation lite and i want to format the drive and use the NTFS File system, May i ask, should i do a quick format or complete format? Thanks