Using the Pegasus with Windows
While most Pegasus owners use macOS, some Pegasus owners use only Windows and some Pegasus owners use their Pegasus to move files between Windows and Macs (using exFAT). But the Pegasus comes configured with HFS+ for use in a Mac. This guide shows how to configure a Pegasus for Windows.
The equipment used for this guide is a Pegasus M4 and a Windows Server 2019 computer with no Thunderbolt port. The steps are the same if a Thunderbolt port is available in the Windows computer except that the Pegasus driver needs to be installed. The connection is via a USB2 to USB3 cable to the USB port of the Pegasus M4.
First step:
Connect the Pegasus. For USB connections use Port A.
The Pegasus USB-C port with a monitor icon under it supports USB. This is also true with the Pegasus 32.
Configuring the storage for Windows:
After connecting wait for the Pegasus to boot and be detected by Windows. The Pegasus should appear in the Disk Management console.
As the Pegasus comes pre-formatted with the macOS HFS+ filesystem, it must be removed. The HFS+ filesystem includes a 200MB EFI partition, a data partition, and an unallocated 128MB partition. We need to clean the disks of these partitions. The Disk Management console won't delete the EFI partition, we will have to use the Windows Promise Utility.
Open the Promise Utility and select Background Activities (blue icon at the far right) > Initialization > Start. This will take you to the screen below. Then select the LD and quick initialization.
Click Confirm to start the quick init, it will take a few seconds to run. You will get a popup window asking you to confirm the quick init, type confirm and click confirm.
Now the boot block and all partition information has been erased, select Rescan Disks in the Disk Managemnt console.
The Pegasus LUN is now all unallocated space.
All we need to do now is put an NTFS or exFAT filesystem on the LUN.
First initialize the disk. Right click over the Disk 1 area at the left and select Initialize Disk.
The disk (Disk 1 in this case) should be selected with a GPT partition table.
Click OK. The disk is now initialized and ready to be formatted.
Right click in the Unallocated space and select New Simple Volume.
The New Simple Volume Wizard will appear.
Click Next till you get to the Format Partition page.
You can leave everything at the default but you should change the Volume Label to name the disk.
Click Next to format the disk.
Quick Format is very quick, in a minute at most you should see a new NTFS formatted Windows disk.
The Pegasus disk is now Windows disk D:. You can access drive D from File explorer and any applications.
