How to format a pc external drive with a mac

Hello everyone! It's about a week I've bought a new imac. I used to have a pc. I have an WD external drive which was not compatible with macs, I am trying to format it using the disk utility and choosing Mac OS extended (journaled). When I am trying to erase it, I always get the following message: 'Disk erase failed with the error: couldn't unmount disk.   I really need your help people, because I'm new to macs and I have already spend hours googling on that...
Thank you in advance for your response..
My operating system is Mac OSC (10.7.3)

It seems so ironic, but I have just found the answer to my question. I saw a movie which was stored in my WD hard drive yesterday and I hadn't quitted quick time. When I quitted quicktime I was able to erase the disc. I apologise for that people!!

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    I am trying to find Leone who had a great post May 2014 to Diane. I posted tho same message as a 'Reply' to the Leone/Diane posts but then was worried it would not show up since that was some time ago so I decided I should post it as new.  Apologies if it comes through twice.   I am having trouble as indicated below:
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    I suggest taking a week or two to get to know Aperture better before proceeding.  Aperture can do many things, and can do what you want.  It's important to be specific about what you want, however.  From what you've said, it appears that you don't yet know.
    bybeeler wrote:
    [1] I found this response to the question about Aperture and external hard drives from last May.  I bought a WD My Book 4TB and need to back up photos I have in Aperture (many!) to free up space.
    [2] I am a photographer and need to be able to plug the external drive in as needed, pull a photo out from the WD and back into Aperture to work on it if needed.
    [1] A back-up is a copy of digital files stores on a separate device.  A back-up is recommended because drives fail, and humans make mistakes.  A back-up is not used to free up storage space.
    [2] Aperture can be set up in many equally-usable ways.  The program files reside (almost always) on your system drive.  The data files can be anywhere you want them, as long as they are on locally-mounted drive(s).  The main data file is your Library.  The best place for it is on the drive that has the fastest throughput to your logic board.  This is, in nearly 100% of machines, the system drive.  But Aperture functions well with Libraries of secondary drives — internal or external — with sufficient throughput.  USB-3 and Thunderbolt I (& II) provide sufficient throughput for using an Aperture Library on a secondary drive.
    Nearly all photographers will fill whatever storage space is available (making data is what photographers do).  The question is: what do you do when your Library no longer fits on your system drive?  (And remember, you should leave at least 10% (I recommend 20% for heavy users of Aperture) of your system drive free.)  The answer depends, primarily, on whether your computer is portable or fixed in location. 
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    — Cons: Yet another level more difficult to administer.
    If you are comfortable with the administrative overhead, the third set-up will be the most rewarding.  Keep all _current_ Images Originals inside your Library, and routinely relocate the Originals of Images no longer current to the external drive.
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    errollflynn2000 wrote:
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