do I need to format this new external drive

[andy baxter]

anthony baldwin wrote:
> This may seem like a silly question, but,
> I just received my shiny, spanking new Maxtor external drive from 
> TigerDirect, which appears to be loaded with some software for 
> automating backups on windopes machines.
>
> Should I wipe and format this drive before using it for my backups?
>
> thanks
> /tony
>   
Might be worth doing just to get a proper file system on it instead of 
FAT16, which it is most likely formatted with at the moment. I have a 
usb external drive which I'm using partly for backing up my personal 
data, and partly for putting all my media files on. I managed to 
partition it into a small ext3 partition for backups plus a larger FAT16 
partition for the media files, which I want to be able to play on 
windows machines.

andy.