How do I format a new external Hard drive for Mac?

Simple question I know for many of you out there but I could do with some advice as I have never done this before. I would like to buy a new external hard drive to store my music and photos on. I will get one with firewire and usb2 connectivity.Could someone walk me through the steps needed to format and prepare a hard drive for use with my Macbook (if it is not already Mac formatted). Will any brand of hard drive work with Mac or are some better than others?

In addition to what Templeto Peck said, make sure that you select the formating to be OSX Extended.
As far as the best esternal drive, type into the "Search Discussion" box: Best external hard drive. This will bring you to several previouslly posted threads that discuss quite thoroughly your question. The following is extracted from one thread:
The best drives are those that use the Oxford 911 chipset. I like the Mercury Elite Pro drives from OWC, but there are plenty of others that use the same chipset.

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How do you format an NTSF external hard drive for use with Mountain Lion

I'm switching over to Mac from PC, and have an external NTSF formated hard drive I regularly use. I understand from the forum the initial file transfer should be no issue, but for ongoing use of the HD, does it need to be formated to something other than NTSF... and if so, to what and how.

Do this when you're ready:
Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

Formatted WD Elements external hard drive for mac, not working

Hey.
So i recently got a new television and found that i could plug my WD Elements hard drive into it and watch my movies etc.
the hard drive hadnt been updated in a while, so last time i had updated it was before we got a mac. i plugged it in the other day to put new things on it and my mac recognized it but it said it was read only and wouldnt allow me to put new things onto it. After doing a bit of googling i realized i needed to format it. I thought i would give it a go see what happened. after looking on the forums i formatted it through either exFAT or NTFS. and my hard drive changed to read & write and i could put my things onto it. But when i plugged it into the tele it said no media was found(still recgonized my hd though)
I'm guessing ive done something wrong. i just don't know exactly what. any tips or suggestions on what to do next would be much appreciated! thanks
oh and my mac's version is 10.9.1

You did nothing wrong, you just need to find a format that can be shared by the Mac and your TV.
Mac can work with Mac formats (HFS), and Windows formats (FAT and NTFS), but NTFS will be only read only.
So your TV set, read NTFS but perhaps not FAT?, and your mac cannot write NTFS.
In order to write to NTFS devices, you must install one and only ONE of this comercial software:
Tuxera or Paragon

New external hard drive for Mac Pro & FCE

I wasn't sure where to post this question, but as most of my Mac work is using FCE I thought this would be the best place to ask.
My Western Digital 1TB Studio External Drive keeps going into sleep mode and I'm concerned it may go to sleep soon and not come back to life again. I'm looking for a similar hard drive with Firewire 800 on it.
Apple store recommended Lacie D2 hard drive which I have previously heard bad reviews about their reliability and customer service. I have over the years on my PC used Maxtor or Western Digital, however this is my second WD Studio drive in last 6 months that has gone into deep sleep mode.
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Thanks in advance.
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Stay away from general purpose backup drives. They are not designed to deal with the demands of video.
If you want a dedicated A/V enclosure that comes supplied high performance drives, Caldigit is seriously recommended. If you are looking for bare firewire enclosures where you can add quality drives, Granite Digital and OWC are good sources. The WD Caviar Black drives as well as the Seagate series Martin recommended are good choices to fill the enclosure.
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x

I bought a new external hard drive for backups, but time machine won't do a full back up. I think it is remembering backing up onto previous external hard drives, which I don't own anymore. How do I do a new full backup?

I bought a new external hard drive for backups, but time machine won't do a full back up.
I think it is remembering backing up onto previous external hard drives, which I don't own anymore. How do I do a new full backup?
When I bought the new (used) iMac, I also bought an external hard drive for backups. It worked fine, but my husband stole it.
Then I bought a new external hard drive (Seagate) and it worked fine for three weeks, then died.
So I just got a new external hard drive, which was put together from an internal hard drive and a hard drive enclosure.
Time machine did the first backup today, and it should have taken 9 hours like it did on the previous first time full back up. Instead, it took 30 minutes. That can't be right. I want to start over and do a full backup to make sure everything gets onto my new external hard drive, but I can't figure out how to do that. Please help.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below to select it:
tmutil compare -E
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C).
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V).
The command will take at least a few minutes to run. Eventually some lines of output will appear below what you entered.
Each line that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
Added:
Removed:
Changed:
These lines show the total amount of data added, removed, or changed on the source(s) since the last snapshot.

HT201250 new external hard drive for Time Machine backup suggestions?

Ok, I have 3 external hard drives; unfortunately I've used them on my PC and they are read only on my iMac. So, I need to buy a new external hard drive for Time Machine backup. I'm a little confused; can I buy any EHD and them format it so Mac can use it or are there special EHD's I need to purchase?
Anyone have a particular EHD that is working well for you? Thanks, Blue

Bluehowler wrote:
Ok, I have 3 external hard drives; unfortunately I've used them on my PC and they are read only on my iMac. So, I need to buy a new external hard drive for Time Machine backup. I'm a little confused; can I buy any EHD and them format it so Mac can use it or are there special EHD's I need to purchase?
Anyone have a particular EHD that is working well for you? Thanks, Blue
Unless you need all three external drives for your PC, you can reformat in one of them in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for use with Time Machine. However, since Time Machine backs up hourly, you'd need the external drive to be running constantly. That means ventilation of the drive becomes an issue since some, such as Seagate, can get very hot in their sealed enclosures. Some drive manufacturers try to get around this by spinning down the drive when not in use, but I've read complaints that that doesn't play well with a Mac. So whether you reuse one of your current externals or get a new one, it's a good idea to keep the drive's ventilation in mind.

I need a new external hard drive for my iMac8,1

I need a new external hard drive for my :
Model Name:    iMac
Model Identifier:    iMac8,1
Processor Name:    Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed:    3.06 GHz
Number Of Processors:    1
Total Number Of Cores:    2
L2 Cache:    6 MB
Memory:    4 GB
Bus Speed:    1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version:    IM81.00C1.B00
SMC Version (system):    1.30f1
Serial Number (system):    YD8520CD0N4
Hardware UUID:    073B29AD-6FFB-5E64-A52C-BF19A054F363
I do not have Thunderbolt on this and when I look up the specs for USB I get
USB Bus:
Host Controller Location:    Built-in USB
Host Controller Driver:    AppleUSBUHCI
PCI Device ID:    0x2835
PCI Revision ID:    0x0004
PCI Vendor ID:    0x8086
Bus Number:    0x3a
Don't know if this is USB 3.0 or USB 2.0
All the new drives seem to use either Thunderbolt or USB 3.0

I have a Western Digital 2 Terabyte USB External Hard Drive and it works like a charm and it costed me $129.00. My opinion is you can't go wrong with this brand and size for home use.
Cheers
Don

How do I use my new External Hard Drive on my Macbook?!?

I recently bought an external hard drive for my PC/Macbooks and have run into a little problem. To make a long story short, I reformatted the external hard drive in Window's XP (NFIT Format, not FAT) because that's the only way it would recognize the drive. After doing so, i tried hooking up the drive to my macbook. The macbook recognizes it, however, it won't allow me to modify the drive at all (add or remove files to/from the macbook). Does anybody know how I can use the harddrive on my macbook?!?! Any help is appreciated.

You need to use FAT or install this driver on the MacBook.
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Formatting an external hard drive for Mac and Windows

Hello,
I just bought a brand new Seagate Expansion Desktop Drive (2TB) and am trying to work out how to format it. I want to move all my photos and movies to it from my laptop so i have more space. I have a Mac OS X 10.5.8 laptop but i also wanted to make sure it was compatible with other Windows computers in case i need to use it on someone else's PC.
I've read through a few posts over the net and i am getting confused as i'm not IT-intelligent at all. I've seen there are possibly 4 different format types.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thank you!

Answered here: Formatting brand new external hard drive

Want to partition a new External Hard drive for both pc and mac

Hello!
I am going to partition a new Seagate external hard drive for both my pc and mac. What format do I choose for the PC partition? MS-DOS (FAT), ExFAT, or Free Space.
Thank you!
Nikki

If I may suggest:
Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. After formatting has completed select the main entry for the new drive (mfgr.'s ID) then click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Click on the large partition rectangle then click on the Add [+] button. The partition should divide into two equal volumes. Resize as you prefer. Select the second or bottom volume to use on the PC. Set the format type to ExFat, then click on the Apply button. Wait for the two volumes to finish mounting on the Desktop.

How do i reformat an external hard drive for mac

i just bought a new external hard drive to back up my mac but it is not formatted for mac yet

You can do that in Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities).
With your new drive attached, choose it on the left. Choose the Partition tab. Decide if you want one or more partitions. Give each partition a name and choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the format. Then click on Options and choose GUID partition scheme. Click on Apply. Your new hard drive will be erased and formatted properly - when done, it is ready for whatever you want to put on it (you do not need any software that may be on the drive currently).

How to Back up iPhone to External Hard Drive on Mac/Windows

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How to scan my computer and external hard drives for pictures with out importing duplicates.

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What features are important to you?
Size?
Capacity?
Speed?
Price?
Reliability?
HDD or SSD?
Desktop or portable?
Just about any USB external drive will function properly, with only a few exceptions. I would avoid the Toshiba Canvio using USB 3.0, as it has been the topic for numerous threads here wherein users have had problems using them with the MacBook Air.
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Personal Experience with the One Touch Series:
Keep a VERY CLOSE EYE on that Maxtor One Touch!
I had two of the 1TB Firewire 800 models at one point. Hard drives failed on one of them within a month. Warranty replaced the unit but not the data. After a year, the tiny fans died and the drives overheated, resulting in total loss of both enclosures and all the data on them (within a week of each other).
Those things are not meant for continuous use. If you only use them for periodic backup purposes, and then shut them off, they may be fine.
Maxtor's setup software for the Mac was a PITA, too. The version included on the disc was worthless. Disk label indicated one version, actual version on the disc was an older, incompatible version. Maxtor sent a replacement disc. It was the same disc with the same problem. Finally located the correct installer on their website. That was a few years ago.
I'll never touch the touch series again as a result.
On the other hand, I've had a SmartDisk FireLite 60 GB (FireWire model) for my Powerbook for 5 years now with excellent performance. I have no problem recommending SmartDisk drives.
-mt

How do I format a new external Hard drive for Mac?

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