How do you format an External Hard Drive

I'm New to Mac. I have a Mac Book Pro Intel. I need to format an old PC hard drive so it works as an external drive. I have it in a enclosure and connected by firewire. The Mac reads it but can not write to it. Plus I don't even know if you format like I did in windows PC.
Mac Book Pro   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

Hey,
Here is a great way on how to format your drive for Mac. You would need to choose the MS-DOS format.
To do this:
1. Go to Disk Utility
2. Find Your External HD on the left hand side and click on it
3. Go to the Erase panel
4. Choose the Volume Format as MS-DOS File System
5. Name the Drive if you wish
6. Erase
For a more graphical representation follow the link below:
Formatting an External HD (Note: In this case where it says "Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or Mac OS Extended" you would pick the MS-DOS option instead.)
This allows you to use your dirve with both OS's and having the option of writing and reading for both. If you have any important documents or things on your HD I would just copy them over into a folder on your internal HD and then when the drive is formatted, just shoot them back over.
-Tom

Similar Messages

  • HT3275 How do you Format the external hard drive been used for time machine?

    Error reads "Not enough space on the external hard drive" How do i format the memory and start again?
    Thanks Geremy

    ON an external hard drive.. that is easy.. just open disk utility and reformat it. Make sure you use Mac Extended Journeled. (HFS+)

  • HT201250 How do you add an external Hard drive to time machine and share on network?

    How do you add an external Hard drive to time capsule and share it on local network?
    Lee

    Ensure it's formatted as Mac OS Extended, FAT16, or FAT32, connect it to a self-powered hub, and plug it into the Time Capsule's USB port. If the drive is Ethernet and not USB, ignore everything else and just plug it in.
    (71787)

  • How do i format an external hard drive for use on both windows and mac book air?

    how do i format an external hard drive for use on both windows pc and mac book air?

    Use exFAT on the PC.
    (71374)

  • How can i format my external hard drive to write files from Mac without loosing the files that i alredy have on my external hard when i used it with windows?

    How can i format my external hard drive to write files from Mac without loosing the files that i alredy have on my external hard when i used it with windows?
    I have been using Windows to write files to my 1TB WD external hard drive and I do not want to format to loose the files capacity of around 500GB
    Someone, Please help

    Hi Allen,
    Is there any way to store the back up to Mac and restore after formating?

  • How can a format an external hard drive to Fat 32 format

    how can i format an external hard drive to a Fat 32

    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. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to MBR then click on the OK button. Set the format type to MSDOS (FAT)  Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

  • How do you dump a external hard drive from PC to mac

    How do i dump my external hard drive from a PC to my Mac

    If you don't see the external HD when you connect it to the Mac, then you need to use Disk Utility to format the XHD to a FAT32 drive. Once done it will read on the Mac and PC without any problems.

  • How do i format a external hard drive?

    i got a external hard drive to use as a back out. but i have no idea how to format the external HD. what should i do? how?
    thank u

    connect the hard drive to the mac
    run disk utility (found in the applications/utilities directory)
    the drive should be displayed in the lefthand pane of the disk utility window, click on it to select it
    click the 'partition' tab, it should show the current format and allow you to alter it if necessary, for mac use the "mac os extended (journalled)" format
    once you've formatted and/or partitoned the drive it is a good idea to go to the 'erase' tab and use it to write zeros to the disk

  • How can I format an external hard drive to Fat 32?

    My brother wants to connect an external hard drive to his Sony PS3 for backup purposes. He bought a Western Digital 3TB "MyBook for Mac".
    The PS3 requires the drive to be Fat 32 format. So I hooked the drive up to my new-ish iMac and went into the Disk Utility, selected "Partition", then said I wanted one partition.
    I named the drive "FAT32", selected "MS-DOS (FAT)" for the Format.
    HERE'S THE PROBLEM: when I go into the "options" menu in order to select "Master Boot Record", it is grayed out. One guy told me that it was because my computer was corrupted, but the same thing happens on my parents (older) iMac.
    Another person said it had to do with the fact that the drive was 3TB. Whu...?
    If anybody could help with this issue, I would be VERY grateful.

    Thank you AnaMusic... this is a nice resource for information.
    However I am still not sure I understand why I can't actually DO the partition/formatting. Any idea why the "Master Boot Record" is grayed out? That's the part that has me stymied. As far as I can tell I'm doing all of the required steps correctly.
    Again, thank you for your help.

  • How do I format an external hard drive to be Mac OS Extended (Journaled)?

    I am in Disc Utilities, but I can't figure out how to format my external drive. It is at 0, ready to go... Just need the steps...
    Thanks,
    Ham

    Hi(Bonjour)!
    The following process will erase everything on your external HD and reformat it to Mac OS journaled partition.
    1) open disk utilities application.
    2) click your external hard drive's name in the left column.
    3) select the "erase" tab in right.
    4) select "Mac OS X extended journalized" in local menu.
    5) click "erase button".
    Formatting a 250 Gig hd can take much than one hour...
    Michel Boissonneault

  • How do I format and external hard drive for my MBP?

    I have an external hard drive that I was using on a windows based system. I backed up the contents to dvd's and now I want to format the drive for my MBP? Can someone please tell me the best way to do this?
    Thanks.

    All you need to do is…
    1) Connect the drive
    2) Launch Disk Utility
    3) Select the drive and go to the partition tab
    4) Click on Options… and chenge it from MBR to GUID Partition Table
    5) Create a partition using MacOS Journalled
    6) Apply the change and you should have a Mac drive

  • How do you erase an external hard drive which will not show up on your computer?

    I bought a LaCie porsche design 2TB external hard drive  from the Apple Store to use with time machine on my MAC 2 months ago. It will no longer show up on my desktopn. After speaking with LaCie, they sent me a replacement. However, I have to send the brooken one back to them and since we could not erase it or anything on my Mac is there anyway to erase the hard drive before sending it back to them with all my information on there?
    Message was edited by: carolsh

    I know. But after Yahoo, Target , Neimans and others. But I agree. They even sent me a more expensive replacement as they did not have my model in stock and is backordered. So, a win win situation. I was impressed that the tech person spent about an hour on the phone with me trying a variety of options. At first, they were going to charge me shipping- but then she changed her mind and shipped the replacement 1 day fed ex. I guess that is why I always buy LaCie vs others. My older LaCie which I still had but was smaller- I plugged in and did a back-up and I had just enough room on it so I have that for safe keepings now as well.
    Thanks again for your pleasant response. I guess I need to limit my profile to "registered members" only. I hope Apple monitors these discussions and people's responses periodically.

  • How do you share a external hard drive between 2 computers

    I have been trying to access my external hard drives that are hooked up to my mac mini from my imac and cant seem to do it. They are listed in the shared folder on the mac mini already.

    Select the folders of files and Finder> Get Info and at the bottom change the permissions to everyone read and write.
    then click the spoky thing and "apply to enclosed items"
    https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents

  • How do you use an external hard drive for your Mac (movies only), iTunes and Apple TV2 all together?  I can't put movies on internal HD as it would use it all up.

    any help is appreciated

    Welcome to the Apple Community.
    The following article(s) may help you.
    Moving your iTunes library to an external drive (Mac)
    Moving your iTunes library to an external drive (PC)

  • How should I format an external hard drive to work with a Mac and a PC?

    I need to transfer some video files from a PC to a Mac, and would like to know to best format the drive such that I can move files from the PC to the Mac.
    Thanks,
    Hal

    MS-DOS/FAT32 if the drive doesn't need to contain files which are 4GB or larger. If it does, there's no solution which doesn't require third-party software; in this case, you may want to set up a network instead.
    (55429)

Maybe you are looking for

  • CO-product configuration in REM scenario

    I am trying to configure co-product scenario with REM process. Is it possible? If any one worked on this scenario please let me know what are the special consideration we need to take or any SAP note available? Thanks in advaice. Rajesha Vittal

  • Job SAP_COLLECTOR_FOR_PERFMONITOR canceled

    Good evening everybody, The job SAP_COLLECTOR_FOR_PERFMONITOR is being canceled hourly with the log below:                                                                                 Date       Time     Message text                               

  • How to disactivate the lost mode after found?

    I put my iphone 4s to the lost mode via icloud.com, and after an hour i found my iphone. i entered my password, it didn't unlocked. in stead the screen went black. please help how to disactivate the lost mode via icloud.com since i cant enter the pas

  • APERTURE TETHERING: How do I prevent Aperture from going to the most recent shot.

    I'm planning on a photo day (kinda like a school portrait) for my company and will be using a D700 tethered to a Mac running Aperture. Currently when I take a photo, the person at the computer doesn't have enough time to enter the name of the subject

  • Elements 10 crashes computer while preparing to burn DVD or to file

    I am trying to make a DVD of a movie approx 55 min long.  The computer shuts down when the process is 25-50% complete.  I made a 6 min movie for UTube last week with no problem.