Is it safe to format ANY external drive to Mac OS Extended?

Some Seagate tech told me a while back that Seagate drives should ONLY be formatted with their proprietary formatting and that my data is vulnerable if I use something else. (I may have misunderstood this, but I'm 98% certain that's what he said.) I do remember him saying not to use the Mac's Disk Utility to format the drive.
I want to reformat this drive so that it's 100% compatible with my new Mavericks iMac.
Is there any concern about formatting ANY external drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Or are there some hard drives that should not be formatted to Mac using Disk Utility?
I'm under the impression that all external drives are basically the same and I can format them however I want. No drive is "made" to be formatted with a certain OS or a certain format.
Is that correct?

Formatting a drive simply will remove any data currently stored on it. There is no such thing as "proprietary formatting." Drives come out of the factory with no formatting.
Whatever the person told you it was patently wrong not to mention mis-informed.
To use a hard drive properly with any computer it needs to be formatted with the tool that is required for the operating system with which it will be used. For the Mac you use Disk Utility (the tool) and you format the drive using Mac OS Extended, Journaled (the format.)
Your impression is correct.

Similar Messages

Formatted External drive for Mac OS extended

Hi,
I actually change from windows to Mac (no comparison...!!) but trying to transfer my photos (Pictures in finder) to an external hard disk i can`t drag and drop and i do not know why....i read in one forume that i have to formatted the external drive for Mac OS extended. First question: how could i do that? if my hard disk was originally formatted for windows, do i lose the info when i formatted?
Thanks!!

You will lose the files on the HD when you reformat it. So copy what you want off the drive to a folder on your Mac temporarily.
select the HD on the Desktop and launch Disk Utility.
select the HD in the left hand page of DU.
click on the Partiton button
select 1 Partition
select OS X Extended (journaled) in the drop down Format menu.
click on the Apply button
drag the folder of files onto the EHD to copy back and then delete from your Mac's drive after verifying that they all copied back successfully.
OT

HELP!!! i formated a external hdd to MAC os Extended file system

HELP!!! i formated a external hdd to MAC os Extended file system in disk utility and now i need it formated back to work on pc. i have tried ms-dos file system under the erase tab and it doesnt work, on my pc all it has under my computer is black, but if you go down by the time you can "safely remove hardware" but it dosent give a drive location (ex: e:/)....
the external hdd is a seagate go 250gb usb

Use the PC to reformat the drive.

How to format an external drive for mac AND pc use

i want to format my external drive so i can use it on my mac and on pc's as well. i've gathered that the MS-DOS format is the way to go. my question is this: would this create any problems for my mac then?
can i partion one part for ms-dos and part for macos extended?
cheers
-j-

MS-DOS format (or FAT32) will be fine for both Mac and PC. However there is a 4GB file size limit with FAT32.
You could use a dual partition, however the HFS+ partition would not be readable by the PC unless you installed the third party MacDrive.
Look at this page for more information on a dual partition drive for Mac and Windows.
http://macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030613121738812
iFelix

Format an external drive from mac to pc

How do I format an external drive (My Passport) from mac to pc (iOS Snow Leopard) without losing my data?

kwnola wrote:
How do I format an external drive (My Passport) from mac to pc (iOS Snow Leopard) without losing my data?
1: Remove the data off the drive
You can do this by installing MacDrive on the Windows PC to access the Mac HTFS+ format
Or you can use a Mac to remove the data.
2: Format the drive on the PC (preferably) by right clicking on the drive and choosing format
A: If data on the drive will have larger than 4GB sized files, then the format you want is exFAT
(if your using Windows XP, you can download exFAT from Microsoft)
B: If the data on the drive will always have less than 4GB sized files, then you should choose FAT32 for most compatibility with all other machines.
3: If you can only format the drive on the Mac then open Apple's Disk Utility in the Utilities folder
Select the drive on the far left, it should have the makers name and a size, then click Partition.
Now select the box and click Options: MBR Then select Format: exFAT or MSDOS (FAT32) and click Apply.
4: If any chance you need to secure delete any data remaining on the drive form being recovered, use the Erase with Zero (or 7x for very secure) before formatting.
Note: Formatting a drive on the PC there will be a option for NTFS, this is for access by Windows only, but software can be installed on the Mac to read/write this format.
If you use exFAT or FAT32, the Mac can read and write this format just like Windows can, no need for extra software.
Linux can read/write just about any format.

Unable to format external drive as Mac OS Extended

I just bought a WD 3TB My Book Essential external hard drive so I can free-up space on my Mac Mini. When I used Disk Utility to erase the data and reformat the drive as Mac OS Extended, I got the following error:
+Disk Insertion+
+The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer+
There were three options; Initialize, Ignore or Eject. Choosing either Initialize or Ignore resulted in the following error:
+Disk Utility Internal Error+
+Disk Utility has lost its connection with the Disk Management Tool and cannot continue. Please quit and relaunch Disk Utility+
So I Googled it and found the following thread http://discussions.info.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11461203
This suggested using First Aid; Repair Disk. When I ran this, I got the following error:
+First Aid failed+
+Disk Utility stopped repairing “disk4s1” because the following error was encountered:+
+Filesystem verify or repair failed+
I'm stuck; does anyone have any ideas how to resolve this?!

Not sure what the problem was on the MacMini (10.5.8), but I just managed to format the disk on my MacBook Pro (10.6.4).
Problem solved!

Reformatting external drive to Mac OS Extended but maintaining RAID setup

Hi again,
I am considering taking the leap finance-wise and purchasing [this external drive|http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-WDH2Q20000N-Studio-Interface/dp/B00 16P7H3Q/ref=cmcr_pr_producttop]. It comes pre-formatted to HFS+ or something, so I guess I will need to reformat it to Mac OS Extended to use it with FCE.
So here are the questions:
*1. Would it make more sense to use it in RAID 0 mode for faster speed, or RAID 1 mode to keep a safer backup of my files?*
*2. Would reformatting it to Mac OS Extended for use with FCE still allow it to use normal RAID abilities?*
I realize this is not the right forum for posting this, but I thought someone here might be knowledgable about backup in general and how to best format an external drive for use with FCE, while maintaining the ability to have a "mirrored" RAID setup. Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance,
Sasha
Message was edited by: skalicki`

So just one more question because I'm pretty new to this whole RAID thing:
Say I formatted the drive to RAID 1 so in theory I have 1TB of space that is "mirrored" over to the other external drive.
*When I ingest my footage, will copies be stored to both drives, so if one fails, I will still have my media?*
I gathered this was the idea but didn't know how it works with FCE.

How to format an external hard disk Mac Os Extended (Journaled)?

hello
I connect an external hard disk (2.5' IDE Western Digital Scorpio Blue, WD2500BEVE) via USB or FireWire to my Mac mini. The Disk Utility tool shows an external disk drive of 128 GB - but the disk has 250 GB. How can I format the external USB/Firewire-harddisk 250 GB "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"?
I tried also to format the disk on a Windows PC (Windows XP). But I could not find a software to format "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)".
Any hints on this? Thanks in advance for any feedback!

andreasmarx wrote:
As I use theses hard disks in a external hard disk case, I'm asking me whether my hard disk cases do not support more that 128 GB disk capacity. Is that realistic?
It is not only realistic but probably the reason your Mac cannot see more than 128 GB of the capacity of the drives mounted in them. It has nothing to do with the interface between the Mac & case (like Firewire) but instead with the controller in the case that connects the raw ATA drive to that interface. Older ATA standards used a 28 bit LBA (logical block address) scheme to access the disk. For 512 bytes per sector this works out to a maximum of 128 GB of addressable disk capacity. The ATA-6 standard, also called Ultra-ATA/100 or just ATA-100, increased the bits in the address space from 28 to 48, with a disk capacity limit of 2 petabytes.
ATA-6 was introduced in 2001, so any external drive case made before then for ATA drives will be forever limited to 128 G. Even now, some come with a controller that does not support the ATA-6 standard, & essentially none have all the hardware to support its full 48 bits of address capacity. However, since 2 PB (2000 terabyte) drives won't be available anytime soon, all you really need is a case that is ATA-6 or better compliant & supports enough address bits for the largest drive you intend ever to put in it.
Case makers don't usually make this information easily available but many now include a "bullet" spec about the maximum capacity their case supports, typically rounded off to simple numbers like 320 GB, 500 GB, or whatever. If you can't find this info, you can assume that the newer the case the more likely it is to support larger capacity drives, or just buy one with a good return policy & test it yourself with the largest raw drive you own.

Formatting an External HD as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

I am having a challenge formatting my external hard drive in the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. From reading the forums I found out that I can not copy my iMovie events to the external HD unless it is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I have a Sans Digital Towerstor external HD enclosure with 2 Seagate 1.5TB hard drives in it. I have been using this setup formatted as FAT with no issues. That is until I started running out of HD space on my 24" iMac. After trying unsuccessfully yo copy my iMovie events to the external HD I found out that it was formatted incorrectly. I have since made copies of all my information and set the external hard drives to a Raid 0 configuration so I can format both drives.
I tried many times to format my external HD's in the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with no success. I kept receiving the error "Partition failed with the error: File system formatter failed." I read some additional articles that suggested I try the Partition tab as opposed to the Erase tab in the Disk Utility. I was able to successfully format the drives as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Since this external drive is meant as a redundant backup I changed the Sans Digital Towerstor to a Raid 1 configuration so there is a mirror image of one of the drives. It would not recognize the drive after I set it back to Raid 1 so I tried to repartition the main drive again using Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I received the same error as I did before..."Partition failed with the error: File system formatter failed."
I need to have the drives in the Towerstor as a mirror backup of each other as I have a lot of important information. Any adivec you can give on how to partition these drives as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) in a Raid 1 configuration would be most appreciated.
Thank you for you time and input.

Thank you for your response. I was able to successfully format the drives Extended journaled when they were out of the raid configuration. I was not able to format as Extended (not journaled) in the Raid configuration.

How to format external drive to MAC OS Extended w/ MBR scheme?

Hello all,
I have a Maxtor 1TB drive that I would like to format to MAC OS Extended (Journaled) but also using a Master Boot Record partition map scheme.
Every time I try using the Disk Utility, I get a partition error. It will only let me partition using a GUID scheme, however the XBox360 that I also connect my drive to requires a MBR scheme.
I have another another Maxtor drive formatted in this manor, so I can't quite understand why I keep receiving this error!
Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks
Message was edited by: Gio_vanni

Not doable. AFAIK, your choices are APM, GPT, and MBR. Additionally, HFS+ isn't available for windoze's MBR; only MS-DOS or FAT-32.

How to format WD external drive for Mac

Just got the WD MyBook 2TB. It's not the one specifically for Mac. It says it is compatible, needs to reformat. How easy is it to reformat? It is for Time Machine. Thanks.

Connect it, power it up, go to Disk Utility (in Applications/Utilities), select the WD disk on the left, go to the Erase tab, and choose "Mac OS Extended". Click Erase. That should do it.
You should then a) see it mount on the desktop, and b) automatically get a prompt to use the drive for Time Machine - if not, you can go into the Time Machine menu (top right of the screen), go to TM Preferences, and select it.
Matt

Formatting NAS hard drive as Mac OS Extended HFS+

I just got a NAS enclosure for my home LAN and two SATA hard drives to fit.
Installed fine, even using the Windows-oriented browser interface installation.
The drives show up nicely in the finder, and some files copy over without difficulty. HOWEVER, some don't. I'm pretty sure that the problem is that the install utility formatted the hard drives in Windows format, because the files that they will not now accept are ones with Windows-disallowed filenames, such as those with long filenames or Windows-illegal characters.
SO:-
I suspect that my problem would be solved if I could re-format the drives in the NAS enclosure to Mac OS Extended HFS+ format. BUT, the Windows-oriented installation utility provided by the NAS manufacturer (Linksys -- don't believe them when they glibly say their NAS boxes are Mac-compatible!) doesn't offer Mac formatting.
And unfortunately, while the NAS drives show up nicely in my Mac finders (both 10.3.9 and 10.5.5), they don't appear in Disk Utility, which is where I usually go to format hard disks.
SO:
Is there a way to format a NAS disk in Mac format over my home LAN?
As a workaround, i could try temporarily installing the SATA drives internally in my G4 and format them that way, then put them back in the NAS enclosure. But it would be a bit of a kluge, and I'd have to re-transplant them every time I needed to undertake disk maintenance.
Any ideas, anyone? Thanks v. much.

Thank you for your response. I was able to successfully format the drives Extended journaled when they were out of the raid configuration. I was not able to format as Extended (not journaled) in the Raid configuration.

Formatting SimpleTech external drive for Mac

Many, many apologies if this is a repeated question, but I've looked for a while and not found a solution.
I am trying to format my SimpleTech prodrive for my PowerBookG4 Mac. The error "could not unmount disc" keeps appearing.
This is despite some of the fixes I've seen online (i.e. using Partition1 instead of the 'erase' as the instructions do, and also changing from Master Boot Record to GUID partition or Apple partition)...
Nothing I've tried seems to work.
Does anyone have any other advice? It would be greatly appreciated. And apologies again if this is somewhere else on the forum...
J

Odd. Which interface between computer and drive are you using?

How to format FAT drive as MAC OS EXTENDED?

Hello,
Does anybody can help me to format a FAT drive as MAC OS EXTENDED? It is an external FW drive. I cannot find the way in the laptop.
Thanks!!

I've discovered one subtlety with Disk Utility that wasn't at all apparent until I smashed into it headlong. I have a number of machines that have been running Tiger Server since the day it came out, incrementally updating from 10.4 to 10.4.11 as each release came out- so I have a number of 10.4 install disks to support them. I have also been painstakingly backing them up weekly via SuperDooper to emergency firewire backup drives, so that when disasters would occur I could theoretically simply reboot from the external drive and keep going.
At some point, Apple changed both Disk Utility and the requirements for a bootable external disk, and apparently I didn't get the memo. The old Disk Utility present on the original 10.4 disks lacks the "Options" feature found on the current one under the Partion tab- which allows the user to select the partition table format. There are now three options: Master Boot Record (FAT/DOS), GUID Partition Table (used to support the Intel OS X machines), and Apple Partition Map for the PPC machines.
Regrettably, PowerPC machines running 10.4.11 apparently *will not boot* from disks reformatted from DOS/FAT as Mac OS X Extended with the old disk utility, as I found to my woe when I installed Security Update 2008-008 and all my Server machines stopped working. They appear on the list of bootable drives when booting in select mode, they appear in the list for selecting the boot disk in System Utility, they can be selected- but the machine will simply not boot from them. The old utility apparently used to leave the FAT/DOS Master Boot Record partition table in place when reformatting to Mac OS Extended. I discovered that it was necessary to use the new utility, and specifically go into the options and select "Apple Partition Table", if you intend to be able to boot from an external drive reformatted from FAT/DOS with 10.4.11-era machines. And it should be noted that the new disk utility *does not* do this table selection by default: you have to use the Options button under the Partition tab and set it appropriately yourself.
Consequently, I spent several days reformatting, repartitioning, changing partion table types, and recloning my backup drives so as to render them bootable once again under this apparently new scheme. So, as a word to the wary: if you have been maintaining bootable external drives since the early (perhaps pre-10.4.7) releases of Tiger, it would behoove you to take a few minutes to go make sure that they are actually *still bootable*- and correct this gotcha before you run into it in an hour of need.
The other bad news if that, if you have the original 10.4 Server disks, "Archive and Install" does not appear to be an option, and you only have a disk utility that can't produce a bootable external disk in any case when booting from them. So it can be a painful exposure.

How to format external drive for mac AND pc use

hi
i want to format my external drive so i can use it on my mac and on pc's as well. i've gathered that the MS-DOS format is the way to go. my question is this: would this create any problems for my mac then?
can i partion one part for ms-dos and part for macos extended?
cheers
-j-

There are a couple of disadvantages with formatting a
disk as FAT32. Firstly, there is a limit on the file
size for FAT32. I think it like 2 GB so if you
capturing video the results will probably not fit
into this file limit. Secondly FAT32 will not be
bootable. I alway clone my system to a backup disk as
bootable. That way if anything goes wrong with my
system, I can just boot from my backup disk and fix
it.
The problem with doing this though is that the drive will not be usable with Windows (which was in the original posting) unless you use the third party MacDrive software on the PC.
iFelix

Is it safe to format ANY external drive to Mac OS Extended?

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