G DRIVE ® Table of Contents Welcome to G-DRIVE mini Table of Contents Safety & General Use Safety Precautions ........... 4 Backup Your Data ............ 5 About Your G-DRIVE mini Introduction .............. 7 What’s in the Box ............ 8 System Requirements ..........9 Overview of the Drive ...........
• Servicing: Your drive contains no user-serviceable parts. If it appears to be malfunctioning, have it inspected by a qualified G-Technology Technical Support representative. • Moisture: Place the device away from moisture or liquids. To reduce the risk of damage, do not expose this drive to rain or moisture.
To help prevent the loss of your data, we highly recommend that you keep TWO copies of your data in separate storage locations. Keep one copy on your G-Technology drive. Keep a second copy on your internal hard drive, another G-Technology drive, or a form of removable storage media.
G DRIVE ® About Your G-DRIVE mini Introduction ..........p.7 • What’s in the Box ........p.8 • System Requirements ........ p.9 • Overview of the Drive ......... p.9 •...
® About Your G-DRIVE mini Introduction Thank you for purchasing the G-DRIVE mini from G-Technology. G-DRIVE mini is the ideal storage solution for people on the go. G-DRIVE mini is a high-performance 7200RPM portable drive offering a stylish look and a heavy duty feel. The drive has plenty of storage space to backup your important documents, music, digital videos and digital photo files.
The following items are included in the box: • G-DRIVE mini • (1) USB 3.0 cable (backwards compatible with USB 2.0) • (1) FireWire® 800 cable • Protective carrying case If any items are missing, please contact G-Technology at support@g-technology.com.
G DRIVE ® About Your G-DRIVE mini System Requirements G-DRIVE mini supports the folllowing Operating Systems. The drive is set up at the factory for use with Mac OS systems, and formatted as ‘HFS+ with Journaling’ . • Mac OS 10.6 or higher •...
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G DRIVE ® Using Your Drive on Mac Easy Installation for Mac ......p.11 • Optional Power Adapter ......p.11 • Use with Time Machine ......p.12 • Disconnect the Drive ......... p.14 •...
If this is the case, it may become necessary to use an optional AC power adapter. Simply plug the optional power adapter into the G-DRIVE mini and attach the other end to a surge protector or wall outlet. For more information or to purchase the optional power adapter for G-DRIVE mini, visit: g-technology.com/products p.11...
G DRIVE ® Using Your Drive on Mac ® Use with Time Machine G-DRIVE mini works perfectly and easily with Time Machine. Time Machine is an application that ships with your Mac and provides automatic backup for your files. The following steps will quickly set up your G-DRIVE mini with Time Machine. 1.
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G DRIVE ® Using Your Drive on Mac ® 3. In the dialog box that appears, select the G-DRIVE mini. Click the Use for Backup button. 4. Make sure the Time Machine switch is set to ON. You can set its options by clicking the Options button.
G DRIVE ® Using Your Drive on Mac ® Disconnect the Drive A great feature of G-DRIVE mini is its ability to be connected and disconnected while your computer is running. To prevent failures and/or data loss, it is important to follow the steps below when disconnecting or ‘unmounting’...
G DRIVE ® Maintenance for Your Drive Initialize Drive for Mac ....... p.16 • Restore the Drive Icon ....... p.19 • Reformat with Partitions ......p.21 •...
G DRIVE ® Maintenance for Your Drive Initialize Drive for Mac G-DRIVE mini was factory-formatted for use or ‘initialized’ for Mac OS. You can reinitialize if you would like to quickly erase the contents of the drive. Here are the steps. 1.
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G DRIVE ® Maintenance for Your Drive 4. Click the Format pop-up and choose the Format option that you prefer. • Mac OS Extended (Journaled): Use this format if you intend to use the drive for Time Machine or to create a separate bootable installation of OS X ®...
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G DRIVE ® Maintenance for Your Drive WARNING: THIS NEXT STEP WILL ERASE ALL DATA ON YOUR DRIVE. 6. Click on the Erase button to continue. A progress bar in the lower right corner of the window will show the progress of the disk’s reformatting. 7.
There will be a link to download the icons. 2. Once downloaded, it should automatically open the G-Technology Icons folder as shown below. If not, double-click the Zip file to open. Then double-click the DMG file to open the G-Technology Icons package.
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G DRIVE ® Maintenance for Your Drive 4. Select the G-DRIVE mini icon on your desktop and press Command+I. This opens its Get Info window. (below left) 5. Select the default icon in the Get Info window. (below left) 6. Press Command+V to paste the custom G-DRIVE mini icon into the Get Info window.
In this example, we will partition a 500 GB G-DRIVE mini connected via FireWire. 1. First, open the Disk Utility program. This application is located on your hard drive under Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility. The window below will appear. Your G-Technology drive will be displayed in the left-hand column. p.21...
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G DRIVE ® Maintenance for Your Drive 2. Select the FireWire or USB icon – not the G-Technology drive icon – by clicking it in the left-side column. 3. Click on the Partition button in the main window. 4. Select the number of partitions you would like from the Volume Scheme menu.
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6. Repeat this process for each partition you have created. 7. Click the Apply button in the lower right corner of the window. A dialog box will appear asking if you want to erase the G-Technology drive partition. WARNING: THIS NEXT STEP WILL ERASE ALL DATA ON YOUR DRIVE.
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You can optionally restore this icon to each partition with the steps on this page. 11. The multiple partitions of the G-Technology drive will be displayed on the desktop. Your drive is now setup with two or more partitions and ready for use. p.24...
G--DRIVE mini is set up at the factory for use with Mac OS systems. A simple initialization will prepare your drive for use with Windows 7, Vista and XP systems. For helpful information on configuring and using your drive with Windows, please visit g-technology.com/windows p.26...
G DRIVE ® Using Your Drive on Windows ® Cross Platform Use You can set up G-DRIVE mini for use on both Windows and Mac system by formatting the drive as ‘FAT32’ . To do this, use the Disk Utility application and format the drive to MS-DOS (FAT), also known as FAT32.
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G DRIVE ® Using Your Drive on Windows ® 4. Select MS-DOS File System from the Format pop-up menu. This will format to FAT32. ® NOTE: You may need to rename the drive because FAT32 does not support more than 11 letters in the drive name. 5.
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G DRIVE ® Using Your Drive on Windows ® WARNING: THIS NEXT STEP WILL ERASE ALL DATA ON YOUR DRIVE. 6. Click the Erase button. A progress bar in the lower right corner of the window will show the progress of the disk’s reformatting. Your drive will be formatted to its full capacity as FAT32.
Thank you for purchasing G-DRIVE mini. If you have any comments or questions about this manual or the product, please let us know! G-Technology appreciates and values its customers, striving to give you the finest service and support. If you encounter any difficulties while installing or using G-DRIVE mini, please g-technology.com/support.
To determine the warranty specifically for your product, visit g-technology.com. A valid proof of purchase may be required to prove eligibility. If you do not have a valid proof of purchase, the limited warranty period will be measured from the date of sale from HGST to the authorized distributor.
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HGST or your reseller provides. To obtain limited warranty service, you must first obtain a Return Materials Authorization (RMA) and ship-to address by contacting G-Technology at g-technology.com/contact/contact_support. Please follow the instructions found on the website. You must return the covered hard disk drive using approved packaging to our logistics center.
Support & Warranty CAPACITY DEFINITION AND DISCLAIMER For G-Technology products 1TB or greater: “One gigabyte (GB) is equal to one billion bytes and one terabyte (TB) equals 1,000 GB (one trillion bytes). Accessible capacity will vary from the stated capacity due to formatting and partitioning of the hard drive, the computer’s operating system, and other factors”...