External Harddrive will not format

So I just bought a new 1Tb my book, and I cant get it to format. Ive done what seems to work for everyone else and set up the partition as a GUID partition table and it still throws the same error as if i was trying to partition as ms-dos, System formatter failed. I am at a loss please help
Thanks
-Ed

ebradley wrote:
So I just bought a new 1Tb my book, and I cant get it to format. Ive done what seems to work for everyone else and set up the partition as a GUID partition table and it still throws the same error as if i was trying to partition as ms-dos, System formatter failed. I am at a loss please help
Technically, GUID Partition Table (GPT) is a type of _partition map scheme_, not a type of partition. The other partition scheme types Disk Utility supports are Apple Partition Map (APM) & Master Boot Record (MBR). "ms-dos" is a type of volume (partition) format more often called FAT. Other volume formats include the various Mac OS ones like "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)."
Disk Utility will show the current partition map scheme of the drive if you select it (not a volume name indented under it) from the list of disks on the left. If it is not "GUID Partition Table" then you need to select the "Partition" tab & from the popup below the words "Volume Scheme" select something other than "Current" (for instance "1 partition"), then click the "Options…" button near the bottom of the window & select the GPT scheme from the choices.

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