Back
to Support & Downloads
For more information, including brochures, demos, and spec sheets, visit the RDX® Storage System product page.
Does Imation's RDX Utility Software have to be installed on each PC I'm using? If you have additional questions or comments, please contact our Technical Support.
Loading the RDX Utility Software is mandatory when the Imation RDX Storage System is to be used with the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system.
Loading the RDX Utility Software is required on Windows PCs to enable functionality of the eject button on the docking station.
The RDX Utility Software is found on the Utilities CD that is included with each Imation RDX Storage System. The software will also be available for download from Imation's website soon.
In Windows 2000 and XP, you must be logged in as an administrator when you install the RDX Utility Software.
This is similar to the set up used on many home computers, where parents designate themselves as administrators and create user access for their children in order to prevent the introduction of unwanted software. In corporate and educational settings, most or many users are not administrators.
As soon as the Imation RDX docking station is connected to the USB port, the operating system will recognize and initialize the device. Afterwards, the drive will appear as a Removable Disk on the system, and can be used exactly like a hard disk drive. From Windows, to find the Imation RDX docking station click on My Computer or Windows Explorer and the Imation RDX docking station will appear as an additional drive. Macintosh users will find the drive on their desktop after the media is inserted.
Within My Computer and Windows Explorer the drive will appear as a removable disk drive for Windows 2000 and Windows XP, with the drive letter designation being the first available drive letter in your folder index after drive C.
Possible causes and remedies:
- Windows Explorer has not refreshed after inserting the drive
Refresh the Windows Explorer by pressing the F5 key. - Cable for the RDX docking station is not fully inserted into the USB port
Remove the Imation RDX cable from the USB port and then reinsert it.
In Windows XP, if you have mapped shared or network drives to beginning letters (i.e., F, G, H), the operating system may fail to assign a drive letter for the RDX docking station. It is best to map all network drives to later drive letters (i.e., M, N, or O).
To see if the operating system is seeing the drive but attempting to assign it to a drive letter already in use, perform the following steps.
- Click on your Control Panel
- Find the Administrative Tools icon and double click
- Double click on Computer Management
- Double click on Disk Management
- Disk 0 is always the local hard drive; so the RDX docking station should appear as Disk 1 or Disk 2 depending on how many hard drives you have, and the assigned drive letter will be visible here*
- If you have to change the drive letter, right click on the appropriate Disk and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths
- Click on the Change button
- Assign a free Drive Letter and click OK
The new drive letter will be assigned and will be seen as the new letter until you reboot the computer or remove the RDX docking station from the USB port.
*Note: In the Drive Management program any external drives such as a RDX Storage System will been seen in the upper right window, but won't be seen as a logical drive in the lower right window.
Imation's RDX cartridges have a write-protect tab that prevents the user from accidentally deleting files. To make your cartridge accessible for writing, locate the red write-protect tab located near the top right corner of the cartridge nearest to the connector. Slide the write-protect tab away from the lock symbol, towards the unlock symbol. You will now be able to write to the cartridge. To re-engage write protection, slide the write-protect tab towards the lock symbol.
Your Imation RDX cartridge comes formatted and ready to use right out of the box.
If you will be using the drive exclusively with Macintosh computers, you should format the RDX cartridges in a Mac native format of your choice. NTFS format can be read on Mac OS 10.2 and above.
In order to write to a RDX cartridge, Mac users must reformat the RDX cartridge from the default NTFS format to a native Mac format for first time use.
- Disconnect the RDX docking station from the computer.
- Click on GO and open Applications.
- Select Utilities and then open Disk Utilities.
- Reconnect the RDX docking station with the cartridge to be formatted inserted and unlocked (write-protection off). The cartridge can only be reformatted if the write-protect switch is in the UNLOCK position.
- Click on the Erase tab and follow the instructions for choosing an appropriate format.
RDX cartridges are pre-formatted with the NTFS file system. Formatting can be changed to FAT32*. Formatting a RDX cartridge will destroy all data files on the cartridge; so users should be certain that all important data are stored somewhere else before reformatting any cartridge.
- Insert a cartridge into the RDX docking station.
- In My Computer or Windows Explorer, highlight the RDX docking station's drive letter.
- Right click on the drive and select Format. A dialogue box opens up that allows user to reformat the drives or to choose a different format. The cartridge can only be reformatted if the write-protect switch is in the UNLOCK position.
To enable NTFS as an available File system option in the pull-down menu, the policies for your Imation RDX cartridge must be set to "Optimize for performance".
- Insert a cartridge into the RDX docking station.
- In My Computer or Windows Explorer, highlight the RDX docking station's drive letter.
- Right click on the drive and select Properties. The Removable Disk Properties dialogue box will open up.
- Select the Hardware tab and then select the "Imation RDX RHDD USB Device".
- Click the Properties button near the bottom of the dialogue box. The Imation RDX RHDD Device Properties box with open up.
- Select the Policies tab in the dialogue box and then select the "Optimize for performance" radio button.
- Click the OK button in the Imation RDX RHDD Device Properties dialogue box to exit. Click the OK button again in the Removable Disk Properties dialogue box to exit.
- The NTFS option will now be an available option to select for the File system format. Follow the instructions for formatting Imation RDX cartridges in Windows.
Yes. The RDX system will work with both USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 ports. Note that USB 1.1 ports will not transfer data as fast as USB 2.0 and may be inadequate for the recording and playback of video information.
If the power indicator is blinking amber after you press the eject button, the Host computer is accessing the media. The RDX docking station will eject the cartridge after the Host access completes.
If the cartridge does not eject after the Host computer access completes, you may not be running the correct utility software. See the "Installing Utility Software for Windows" section of the RDX User Guide for instruction on installing the software.
If the cartridge still does not eject, use Windows Explorer to eject the cartridge. In Windows Explorer, right-click on the drive letter for the RDX docking station (i.e. F:), and select Eject.
Imation RDX cartridges can be infected with a virus if you save a virus-infected file to the unit. A virus-infected cartridge can then infect any other computer you might use with the cartridge. Avoid this problem by using anti-virus software on your computer and update it regularly with the most recent virus definitions.
For questions regarding EMC Retrospect Backup software please visit EMC at www.emcinsignia.com.
Yes. RDX is compatible with all the leading backup applications.