Recommended way to format external drive?

Hi
I just bought a Lacie external drive because I want to start recording on an external drive instead on the internal drive of my iMac (running Tiger). However, the question of formatting and partitioning has arisen. My thinking is that it would be handy to use the drive to also back up my windows files, which relatively speaking, wouldn't take up much space on the (1 Terabite) drive.
So my question is: would it be best to format the whole drive space in FAT 32 (to enable Mac and Windows use for the whole drive) or would it be better to devote a small partition to FAT 32? That said, my disc utility window on the Mac doesn't appear to offer the FAT 32 option. There is, however, a "free space" option, which I assume is the option of leaving one partition open to future formatting as needed?
Alternatively, given my priority is recording, would it be best just to leave the whole drive in the MAC OS Extended format that it is currently in?

Some info on "journaling", why you need it, why you might not.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2355
It's good to remember that journaling can only help avoid corruption to the static file system. If your system crashes while recording there's no help for any files that were being written, if anything, the extra disk writing caused by journaling an audio drive could possibly cause wear & tear on the drive with no appreciable benefits. Personally, I leave it off on the audio drive.
On one system I have journaling off on the system drive, makes for a smoother OSX ride.
I gather that journaling (like MS indexing) was designed for servers that were continually accessing/writing many small files, it was a time saver if the system crashed as the drive didn't have to go through as long a verify process.
pancenter-

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My questions continue below in red. Thank you for your patience.
LaPastenague wrote:
Tsac77 wrote:
Thanks for the in depth clarification. A few follow up questions:
1) Are you saying that even though I am only using the TC (in this instance) to make the windows drive available on the network, the drive still needs to be formatted in HFS+?
HFS+ or FAT32.. the later having severe issues with large disk and large files.
Great. I'll do HFS+
2) If I format the windows drive in HFS+, will the windows laptop be immediately able to write/read to it over the network? Or will I have to install some sort of program on the windows laptop that allows windows to read/write to HFS+ (which I've always undewrstood to be a mac only format)?
The format of the disk connected to a NAS is totally irrelevant.. if it offers windows networking file protocol.. ie SMB then it can store files on the hard disk.. it is just like sharing the disk in the Mac.. you can write to that directly from the PC. Try it.. The disk is controlled by the Mac. But it presents SMB to the Network.. On your Mac, go to system preferences.. sharing.. it should be in Internet and wireless.. but on Lion I have no idea. Open file sharing which should be ticked..there should be a public folder by default.. you can add others.. go to options, turn on SMB.. then from the windows computer you should see the disk available in networking. If not fix the names to SMB standard.. you will need to do this on the TC as well.. short, no spaces.. pure alphanumeric names. Copy some files from windows to your Mac.. you have now copied to a network drive.. with the drive format totally irrelevant to your windows computer.
I'm sorry, but I don't know what "windows networking file protocol" and "SMB" mean. Also, when you say "NAS" are you referring to the Time Capsule or another device? Can you please explain things like "The disk is controlled by the Mac but it presents SMB to the network" in a less advanced way. Pretend I'm a child. You won't be far off. It seems like this technique you're explaining is a way for the windows PC to write to the external drive via my MacBook. Is that even close to correct? The setup I must create needs to work regardless if macbook is on/off/out of the house.
3) Does plugging a USB drive into the TC never work properly or is this just a semi-common problem that happens sometimes? My odds of success will probably dictate whether I try this or not. I already own the windows USB drive and would like to avoid buying more hardware if possible.
It is problematic enough that I recommend you try it before committing to it. Even if you have to copy the files off to another location and then reformat the drive. Test it for a couple of days.. the issue happens especially when you are using Lion.. but will also happen with windows. Especially when the disk spins down it will not spin up again and become available to the network.
Got it.
4) What do you mean by files being in "native format"? And what does a dead TC have to do with whether or not they can be recovered to the windows laptop? If the TC dies, can't I just plug the windows USB drive directly into the windows laptop and it will be the same thing as connecting the drive and laptop via network? How does a dead TC make things more difficult?
Thanks for your continued help.
HFS+ is not windows native format... so files stored by the TC on the USB drive.. when the TC dies.. they all die eventually may be difficult to recover unless you plug it into another TC.. as the PC cannot natively read them. If you format FAT32 then the windows computer can read it.. just there are other issues. eg the disk can be slow.. very slow and it has far less protection. eg a power failure can corrupt the drive.. this was an issue before we moved in windows to NTFS.
Why do you say "files stored BY THE TC on the USB drive" Why is the TC storing files on the USB drive? Isn't plugging the USB into the TC just making the USB available on the network to my windows laptop? Why is the TC storing files?

Formatting external drive for storage/backup/video files

Hi,
I just purchased a 500mb My Book Pro external drive for use with my imac duo which runs Windows XP via bootcamp. This computer is shared by three family with very different skills and needs. My dilemma. I want to format the drive so that the imac can be backed up easily three users. It is formated Fat32 and is supplied with Restrospect Express 7.5 backup software. It would be nice to backup the modestly used windows sector, but that's a secondary consideration. My problem is that one user has a lot of larger than 4 gb video files which are too large the Fat 32 format. My notion is to segment the backup drive so that I leave 300 mb in fat 32 to facilitate backup with supplied software, and segment a second 200 gb drive using mac os extended so that the user can manually move her video files for storage/backup on the backup drive. Is there a simpler solution? For example, if I formatted the entire 500gb as mac os extended, could I still run the retrospect backup software? If not, is there a reasonably priced alternative software? And finally, with either Fat32 or Mac OS extended, can I move files from the Windows platform? Would I be better off just biting the bullet and telling my daughter to make her own arrangements to compress and backup her video files or get her own hard drive, thus leaving the backup drive to the simple factory supplied software solution?
G-4 and iMac core duo Mac OS X (10.4.9) use emacs and imacs at work location

Hi,
I just purchased a 500mb My Book Pro external drive
for use with my imac duo which runs Windows XP via
bootcamp. This computer is shared by three family
with very different skills and needs. My dilemma. I
want to format the drive so that the imac can be
backed up easily three users. It is formated Fat32
and is supplied with Restrospect Express 7.5 backup
software. It would be nice to backup the modestly
used windows sector, but that's a secondary
consideration. My problem is that one user has a lot
of larger than 4 gb video files which are too large
the Fat 32 format. My notion is to segment the backup
drive so that I leave 300 mb in fat 32 to facilitate
backup with supplied software, and segment a second
200 gb drive using mac os extended so that the user
can manually move her video files for storage/backup
on the backup drive. Is there a simpler solution? For
example, if I formatted the entire 500gb as mac os
extended, could I still run the retrospect backup
software? If not, is there a reasonably priced
alternative software? And finally, with either Fat32
or Mac OS extended, can I move files from the Windows
platform? Would I be better off just biting the
bullet and telling my daughter to make her own
arrangements to compress and backup her video files
or get her own hard drive, thus leaving the backup
drive to the simple factory supplied software
solution?
G-4 and iMac
core duo Mac OS X (10.4.9) use emacs
and imacs at work location
Hello,
You're indeed in a pickle. If you use Bootcamp and want the HD accessible via the Mac and WinXP, then you don't want to format it as Mac HFS because WInXP wouldn't be able to access it. If you go FAT32 then both WInXP and Mac OS can access it, but you face the dilemma of the 4GB threshold.
If you format as NTFS, then you eliminate the 4GB threshold but then Mac OS cannot access it.
I have a similar dilemma, which is why i use Parallels more than Bootcamp. I have 2 external FW HD's (160GB/250GB), both formatted to Mac HFS. The 160GB i have partitioned as 50GB and 100GB. I have a bootable backup of Mac OS residing on the 100GB partition (yay to SuperDuper!) and some other stuff on the remaining 50GB. The 250GB is exclusive for movies (cough..cough..bittorrent) and for streaming via Orb 2.0 to my Treo. I have WinXP running in Parallels, and Vista Ultimate via Bootcamp. In Parallels, i can access my external HD's via Parallel's Shared Folders but in Vista (Bootcamp) since the HD's are in a non-Windows recognised formatting, they're not accessible (which is a bummer, as i'm loving Win media center).
What you can do is partition the HD the way you're thinking and format (one part Mac HFS and the other NTFS), but my best recommendation is that with the falling prices of HD's nowadays, why not just get a seperate HD do what you want with it. I spied a WD MyBook 500GB USB HD at CompUSA for $129.99 (no mail-in rebate nonsense) and similar good prices at Bestbuy and Newegg.com.
iMac 17" 2GHZ C2Duo 2GB RAM 160GB HD Mac OS X (10.4.9)

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

Disappeared: 48GB of files on fat32 formatted external drive

All of a sudden my files from my MB Air (OS X 10.7.2) on a 300 GB Maxtor external drive disappereed. The more info shows 48GB are used on the disc; the format is: MS-DOS (Fat32); and there is another partition for my PC docs, and it's fine. Help!

Ok, confirmed. It is NTFS and according to the permissions I can only read it. The frustrating thing is that it says:
    - Capacity: 74.53 GB
    - Available: 50.35 GB
    - Used: 24.18 GB on disk
and yet at the bottom of the file list it shows "0 items"
Now the dilemma. The harddrive on my Windows laptop is very small (30GB) so I cannot copy all of my pictures to it. I could hook the old harddrive and the new harddrive up to it at the same time and move them from old to new, however...
The new harddrive is supposed to only be for the Mac so my intention was to format it that way. Because I am not sure if/how I am going to need it to resolve this issue, the box hasn't even been opened...so the first question is long term would it be better to have the new harddrive MAC or FAT32 formatted?
I have been assuming that Mac formatting was the preferred route so I am still brainstorming on ways to get the files straight from the old harddrive to the Mac. Could it just be a matter of the files being hidden on the old harddrive? How do I unhide them?

Format External Drive for HFS+ volume and FAT32 volume with Disk Utility

I just bought a Seagate 1tb external drive from OWC and I want to partition it into a HFS+ (journaled I assume) volume and a NTFS volume. Objective: To manually backup critical folders from my wife’s Dell (running XP) to the NTFS volume and critical Mac folders from my PowerBookG4 to the HFS volume.
My plan was to have my Mac (10.4.11) do the partitioning into a 350gb FAT32 volume for Windows and a 650gb HFS+ volume for Mac – then take the external drive to the Dell and have the Dell reformat the 350gb FAT drive to NTFS.
First question – Is this possible overall?
Second question – I haven’t been able to get my Disk Utility on my Mac to do the initial partitioning into one HFS volume and one FAT32 volume the way I want it. Is this step possible?
I’m happy to be more specific about the steps I’ve taken if the basic plan is good. From what I’ve found in some forums so far, I think I’m on the right track but am unable to execute it. Thank you.

Thank you Limnos for all your help. Last night I tried again and it worked! I’ not totally sure on what I did right but:
• Both volumes on the new ext. driver were HFS (from my last attempt the other day) so I looked into a simple erase of one partition/volume into a different format, but DU did not offer a way of erasing it into MS-DOS(FAT32). But I think I did a simple HFS erase anyway of the volume I wanted to format to FAT32. There was nothing “in” that volume because this was a new external drive but I figured it could not hurt anything.
• So then, I think I went back to Partition, locked the partition/volume that I wanted to keep in HFS+ for my Mac files, and (re)partitioned the other just erased volume to MS-DOS. I think I did it under the MBR option.
• It worked! Not sure why but my Mac recognized both volumes one as HFS, the other as FAT32. Maybe someone will find this useful some day!!
• Then, I hooked up the drive to my work Dell, the Dell found only the FAT32 drive (as expected), and I executed a short simple easy command I found on ehow.com (search for ‘convert FAT32 to NTFS’) to make that volume NTFS.
Thanks again Limnos and everyone else!

Format External Drive Partitioned OSX extended and FAT32

I am new to the concept of partitioning a drive and have found information mentioning that disk utility has a MS-DOS option for partitioning a drive. I do not have this as a drop down choice in my Disk Utility options. I have read that this is format equivalent to FAT32. I would like to partition this drive half OSX extended and half FAT32. How do I get the drop down choice and is this possible.
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Thank you Limnos for all your help. Last night I tried again and it worked! I’ not totally sure on what I did right but:
• Both volumes on the new ext. driver were HFS (from my last attempt the other day) so I looked into a simple erase of one partition/volume into a different format, but DU did not offer a way of erasing it into MS-DOS(FAT32). But I think I did a simple HFS erase anyway of the volume I wanted to format to FAT32. There was nothing “in” that volume because this was a new external drive but I figured it could not hurt anything.
• So then, I think I went back to Partition, locked the partition/volume that I wanted to keep in HFS+ for my Mac files, and (re)partitioned the other just erased volume to MS-DOS. I think I did it under the MBR option.
• It worked! Not sure why but my Mac recognized both volumes one as HFS, the other as FAT32. Maybe someone will find this useful some day!!
• Then, I hooked up the drive to my work Dell, the Dell found only the FAT32 drive (as expected), and I executed a short simple easy command I found on ehow.com (search for ‘convert FAT32 to NTFS’) to make that volume NTFS.
Thanks again Limnos and everyone else!

Trying to format external drive

Hi,
I am trying to format an external 1TB Maxon hard drive for use with my airport extreme as a wireless Time Machine backup. I plug it into my Mac Pro through usb and run Disk Utility, select the drive, select Erase, select Mac OSX Journal, select Zero Out Data and run it.
Well, after doing this twice now, and after each process taking around 13 hours I keep getting "Disk Utility Lost Connection" Error message. Is the drive bad? Is there a way to do a quicker erase and format?
I checked the forums and this seems to be an issue from back in 10.3?? Also, I just installed an internal 1TB in my Mac Pro and went through the same steps, works great, took about 2-3 hours for the whole process??
Any help would be appreciated.

Follow this procedure:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
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.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

Ca I stop TM from formatting external drive prior to backup?

I bought an external drive to backup my Mac and my Pc. It is formatted as Fat32, acceptable both to Mac and Pc.
When I tried to use Time Machine it asks to format the external drive -- which means it will be formatted for Mac only. Is there a way to force Time Machine to accept Fat32 and proceed with the backup?
If not, is there an easy to check list of files or folders that should be backed up manually?
Thankx. Roxy

You cannot use a FAT32 drive for a Time Machine backup destination. FAT32 doesn't support the required features that let Time Machine store multiple copies of files and directories in the way it does.
You have two basic options.
One is to format the disk as HFS+ (including partitioning the drive to have a separate Mac and a PC partition)
Two is to create a disk image on the FAT drive and use the disk image as your backup destination. As a disk image, the necessary file links work and are hidden from the FAT disk.
At no level, though, will the PC be able to read files directly from the Time Machine backup.

Formatting external drive

Hi,
I have a macbook with OS X 10.4.11. I recently purchased a Mac Box Set to install Snow Leopard. Not wanting to lose precious files I purchased an iomega eGo portable hard drive (sadly not the Mac version). It arrived today and has instructions to format the drive for mac. Followed instructions, all seemed well until a drop down box appeared warning about losing data and erasing files. Didn't like the sound of that so thought I would seek advice. checked out the Iomega site and they recommended backing up important files - which is what I bought the external hard drive for!!
Basically, I just want to know will all my files be erased if I continue to format, or should I return the hard drive and purchase a Mac edition?
Apologies if this question has been answered previously.
Many thanks in advance for any helpful advice you can offer as I really just want to get on and install Snow Leopard.

The instructions for formatting your new iOmega drive will not harm the files on your MacBook. The iOmega with no files on it yet will be formatted thus erasing nothing because there's nothing on it yet. You just need to format it for Mac to use it with your MacBook.

Formatting external drive to wipe all data?

What is the best way to format an external USB/FW drive to securely wipe all the data off of it? I know data can always be recovered, however, I am only interested in attempting to ensure that the average person will not be able to get the data.
Thanks.

Follow the directions in KB 107437, Mac OS X: How to zero all data on a disk.

Formatting external drive as FAT32

what are the disadvantages of formatting an external drive as FAT32?

The best bet for most uses is FAT32 file system. For more security, other file systems are available, but you need to get third party software in order to allow windows or mac to read/write respectively.
NTFS (Windows NT File System) is the most advanced Windows system, developed for NT, and used in windows NT, 2000, XP & Vista. Macintosh systems can read NTFS, but cannot write to it unless third party software is installed. This software may come at a price (usually around $25-$30)
HFS+J (Mac OS Extended (Journaled)) is an advanced Macintosh file system that is probably the most secure way to go, however Windows systems cannot read or write to this file system unless third party software is installed.
FAT32 is an old windows file system that is used universally among many devices. This file system also has a size limit of 4GB. It can store many files as long as each single file is less than 4GB. On Windows VISTA, you cannot copy groups of small files totaling more than 4GB at a time. Macintosh and Windows systems, as well as other systems like Playstation 3 can Read and Write to FAT32 without third party software. There is no third party software available for Ps3 to date.

Recommended way to format external drive?

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