On occasion (e.g. after self-destructing your DL3)  you will need to initialize and reformat the drive to make it usable again.


Initializing Your Drive:

  1. Touch the Start screen.
  2. Follow the onscreen prompts, touching Yes and Continue.

  3. Touch the screen 16 times to generate a new AES key. The default password is 0000000.

You will now have to format your drive. The instructions to format your drive will vary depending on your operating system. 


Selecting The Correct File System:

Your device is formatted as NTFS from the factory. The DL3 can be reformatted to any file system of your choice to accommodate a different operating system or to remove file size restrictions. 


Recommended file systems:

  • FAT32 
    • Pros: Cross-platform compatible (Windows, macOS, and Linux)
    • Cons: Limited individual file size of 4GB
  • NTFS
    • Pros: No file size limitations
    • Cons: Limited cross-platform compatibility - Windows, macOS (read-only), and Linux(read-only)
  • exFAT
    • Pros: No file size limitations
    • Cons: Not supported by legacy operating systems

Note: Reformatting your DL3 drive will erase all your files but will not erase your device password and settings. This should not be used as a method of securely erasing files. To securely erase your files, perform a Zeroize function.


Important: Before you reformat the device, back up your drive to a separate location, for example, to cloud storage or your computer. 


Formatting Your DL3 On Windows:

  1. Connect the DL3 to the computer and log in.
  2. Download the DataLocker Disk Formatter Tool, which can be found here.
  3. Run the DataLocker_Disk_Formatter.exe. The formatting tool will automatically find the DL3 device.
  4. Select the Drive Letter and Format Type, and rename your Drive Label.
  5. Click Start Format.
  6. The formatting tool will show Formatting drive... 
  7. Note: Windows may recognize that the drive needs to be formatted after the formatting tool has already started. Feel free to close any popups from Windows that say the drive needs to be formatted.

  8. When finished, the formatting tool should display the message “The formatting has successfully finished!” Your DL3 will now appear under This PC.


Formatting Your DL3 on macOS:

  1. Go to Applications under your Finder.
  2. Click Utilities and open Disk Utility. You will receive a warning message that the drive is not readable. Click Ignore.
  3. Select the unformatted DL3 disk.
  4. Click the Erase tab at the top of the screen.
  5. Rename the disk label and choose a file system.
  6. Click Erase. The drive will begin formatting.
  7. When it is finished formatting, you may get a popup message asking if you would like to backup your drive with Time Machine. Choose your preferred option.
  8. Click Done. Your formatted DL3 should now appear under Devices.


Click on the links below for a video walkthrough on formatting your DL3: