Elephant Drive FAQ
1. My Elephant Drive does not show up in my computer.
- On Mac OS X, the Elephant Drive does not show up on the Desktop.
- On Windows XP, the Elephant Drive does not show up in Windows Explorer, or in My Computer.
You should check to ensure that the USB or FireWire cables are firmly connected to both the drive and your machine. Next, ensure that the included power supply is connected to the drive, and a wall outlet. Ensure that the Power Button, located on the back of the drive is in the ON position.
2. I receive an error message when I disconnect my Elephant Drive from my computer.
- On Mac OS X, the Elephant Drive needs to be ejected before you can disconnect it, and power it down. To eject the drive in Mac OS X, drag the drive's icon to the trash in your Dock.
- On Windows XP, the Elephant Drive needs to be ejected before you can disconnect it, and power it down. To eject the drive in Windows XP, right click on the Eject/Remove Hardware icon in the lower right of your screen, and choose Safely Remove Hardware. A dialog will appear asking you to select the device to remove- select the Elephant Drive, and click the Stop button.
Always ensure that eject the drive from the computer, before turning off the power or disconnecting it. Failure to do so may result in the loss of your Data.
3. My Elephant Drive disappears from my computer, but I didn't turn it off or unplug it.
- On Mac OS X, the Elephant Drive disappears from the Desktop, or you receive the error message "Device Removal - The device you removed was not properly put away..."
- On Windows XP, the Elephant Drive disappears from Windows Explorer, or you see the "Spinning Hourglass" cursor when trying to access the drive.
You should stop using your Elephant Drive Immediately, and take your drive back to the place of purchase for service. Continuing to use your drive in this condition may result in further loss of your data.
4. Whenever I try to use my Elephant Drive, my computer freezes up.
- On Mac OS X, when trying to use the Elephant Drive your cursor turns into the "Spinning Beach Ball" and stays that way.
- On Windows XP, when trying to use the Elephant Drive, your cursor turns into the "Spinning Hour-Glass" and stays that way.
You should stop using your Elephant Drive Immediately, and take your drive back to the place of purchase for service. Continuing to use your drive in this condition may result in further loss of your data.
5. Whenever I transfer files to or from my Elephant Drive, Windows XP gives me the error message "Delayed Write Failed".
This is a known issue with Windows XP. There is nothing wrong with your Elephant Drive!
For more information about this error, consult this article in Microsoft's Knowledge-base:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=330174&sd=RMVP
6. I want to use my Elephant Drive on both Mac OS X and Windows based Computers.
Your Elephant Drive comes ready to use with Mac OS X out of the box. If you wish to use it with both Mac OS X and Windows XP, you will need to change the way the drive is formatted, or install software to make Macintosh formatted drives accessible to Windows XP. There are several solutions:
a) Reformat the Elephant Drive under Mac OS X, using Apple's Disk Utility.
• On Mac OS X, open Disk Utility. Select the Elephant Drive's Orange Icon on the left side.
• Next, click the Erase button in Disk Utility.
• Choose "MS-DOS File System (FAT32)" as the Volume Format, and click Erase.
This will ERASE everything on your Elephant Drive, so make sure you have copies of anything you need somewhere else. There is a known limitation with MS-Dos File System, in that it can only work with files which are 4GB or less.
b) Install a program such as MacDrive on the Windows XP Computer(s)
• Installing MacDrive on a Windows XP System will allow it to read and write to Macintosh formatted drives. You can then work with files of any size on your Elephant Drive. For more Information on MacDrive, visit the Mediafour website:
http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive6/
7. My Elephant Drive does not show up when I plug it into my Windows XP system.
Your Elephant Drive comes ready to use with Mac OS X out of the box. If you will only be using it with Windows based systems, you should re-format it using the NTFS file-system, using a computer running Windows. If you wish to use your Elephant Drive with both Mac OS X and Windows XP, see the instructions in FAQ #6.
8. My Elephant Drive goes to sleep or spins down after a while.
Your Elephant Drive may go to sleep (become inactive) after not being in use for a while. This is an energy saving feature of your operating system, but it can cause problems when working with large files, such as in audio or video editing applications. You can change these settings in your computer's preference settings.
a) In Mac OS X, open System Preferences. Next, click on Energy Saver. If you wish to keep the drive from going to sleep, make sure there is no check-mark beside "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible"
b) In Windows XP, open Control Panels -> Power Options. Under 'Turn off Hard Disks' there is a pulldown menu you can use to select the amount of idle time before hard disks are turned off. If you wish to keep your drives from going to sleep, make sure that you choose 'Never'.
9. Why is the actual capacity of my Elephant Drive different than the label on the box?
Hard drive capacities can be measured using two very differing standards. You may see either a decimal or binary measurement on your drive in terms of its capacity. In the decimal system, manufacturers define 1 MB (Megabyte) as 1,000,000 Bytes. In the binary system, manufacturers define 1 MB (Megabyte) as 1,048,576 Bytes.
Different disk utilities will use only one system or another, and thus report the capacity of the drive to be different based the measurement standard being used to define the size of the drive.
10. How much video footage can I expect to store on my Elephant Drive?
Digital Video can take up lots of space on your Elephant Drive. Each type of Digital Video format takes up a different amount of space. Here are some general estimates of the amount of space the different types of footage will take on your Elephant Drive:
HDV: 10.8 GB per Hour
DV25: 13.3 GB per Hour
DVCPro HD: 57 GB per Hour
8-Bit Uncompressed: 80 GB per Hour
10-Bit Uncompressed: 100 GB per Hour