When to Update Hard Disk Drivers: General Tips

TECHINFO-0020713

TOPIC

When should I use the update driver function of my disk formatting software?

DISCUSSION

All Macintosh hard disks contain a small partition containing low level drive support code, that is instructions that are loaded into memory at start up time to support the functions of the hard disk.

If your hard disk does not mount on the desktop normally, updating the driver with your formatting utility may be the solution.

Other strange or unexplainable problems with hard drives, can sometime be cleared up by updating the hard disk drivers.

As a general rule, you should use the same formatting utility to update the drivers as you used to format the disk originally. If you are updating drivers with a different utility, you should backup existing data when possible and consult the vendor of the new utility to see if the old drivers can safely be replaced by their new driver. Drives with multiple partitions could be at risk of data loss.

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