Reformatting a WD hard drive to factory setting

How do you reformat a WD hard drive to factory settings/

I am having the same issues. I'm waiting to see what answers pop up. The manual says that TM backups are supported. Plugged in my TM backup drive, and nothing. Not seen in finder, not shown in Airport Utility/disks, nothing. I purchased this router partly because of TM support. Anyone?

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Greeting, I want to reformat my external hard drive using Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted ) but before formatting it, I want to make sure that if I loose the hard drive or the hard drive get stolen, no one will be able to retrieve or recover the in

Greeting,
I want to reformat my external hard drive using Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted ) but before formatting it, I want to make sure that if I loose the hard drive or the hard drive get stolen, no one will be able to retrieve or recover the information on it so could you tell me what kind of encryption will be used or is there any way to recover the information?
Thanks!

I think FileVault is used to encryp internal hard drive but I wanna encrypt an external hard drive with Mac OS Extended Journaled Encrypted which is completely different!

I just had to reformat the external hard drive that houses my iPhoto library, then restore it from a backup. Now Time Machine is telling me my backup hard drive suddenly does not have the space to complete a backup. I also noticed when I go in to Time Mac

I just had to reformat the external hard drive that houses my iPhoto library, then restore it from a backup. Now Time Machine is telling me my backup hard drive suddenly does not have the space to complete a backup. I also noticed when I go in to Time Machine, there are only about 5 backups recorded on the ext. hard drive. There were many more before. Any idea what happened and if I have to buy a new back up hard drive?

Hallo Kieth ,
I am not quite ready to restore the full iphoto library , as I have days of work re - imputting titles,descriptions and enhancement . I hope that your suggestion works , as I use my Macbook basically to work with digital photography. Through time , I will need to delete my library to recover more disc space and I would hate to have to spend more time re - imputting titles and descriptions all over again .
Thanks for your interest and advice.
regards - Alan

How do I reformat my External Hard Drive (Seagate Backup Plus).

Hello everyone. How do I reformat my External Hard Drive (Seagate Backup Plus Portable Device). I accidentally clicked to use it with Time Machine and my hard drive is of little use now. When I open my hard drive, it just shows 'backup', the same thing when I open it with Windows. Thinking of reformatting it back to be used to Mac and Windows. And not use it again with Time Machine. New to Apple, appreciate the help

Hello,
"Thinking of reformatting it back to be used to Mac and Windows. And not use it again with Time Machine"
If you want to format the External drive as universally compatible, your best bet is to format it as exFAT. Note that reformatting the drive erases all contents of the drive.
1) Open Disk Utility located in /Applications/Utilities/ (or simply type it in spotlight and the application will show up)
2) Select the external Hard drive
3) Click the 'erase' tab.
4) Under format: select exFAT
5) Click "Erase" in the lower right hand corner to reformat the drive.

How can i reformat my external hard drive without loosing any data?

how can i reformat my external hard drive without loosing any data?

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
It's impossible to format a hard drive without losing the data. One thing you can do before formatting is to copy the files from the external drive to your internal drive, and then, format the external drive. After formatting, copy the files to the external drive again, and everything will be as before formatting it

HT3764 How to reformat an external hard drive using Snow Lepard to use for Time Machine

How to reformat an external hard drive using Snow Lepard to use for Time Machine

Use the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder to erase it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with GUID as the partition map format(or APM if you're using a PowerPC Mac running 10.5).
(73291)

How do I remove one failing hard drive from raid set and replace with new one

Last Friday apparently one of my raid drives started failing.
As I mentioned on this forum I started getting continous beeping.
I was finally able to get the raid working at a degraded level. I ordered a replacement hard drive which is arriving today.
(In the meantime I made twice daily backups of my work.....)
Below was the message I got from the browser based raid software:
Blahblah 09    1000.2GB   RaidSet Member SamSung HD103SJ
Blahblah 10    1000.2GB     Free                 SamSung HD103SJ
Blahblah 11    1000.2GB   RaidSet Member SamSung HD103SJ
Blahblah 12    1000.2GB   RaidSet Member SamSung HD103SJ
(See this earlier thread if you wish!)
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/727867?tstart=0
At one point when I did the checked the browser interface I saw the message Failed and Degraded
As I said, I was able to work over the weekend on the degraded system.
This morning I got the beeping again and did the rescue and now I am running a "full raid" without the notice that one raid was "Free".
In any case, the new hard drive is arriving today.
What steps should I take to incorporate the new drive into the raid system.
I have one OS drive
and 4 tb raid drives.   One needs to be replaced with the new one that I am getting today.
Thanks
Rowby

Harm,
Regarding your comment:
Re: How do I remove one failing hard drive from raid set and replace with new one
Please tell me how to read the serial number from an individual drive rather easily, without un-installing them:
If you select the proper drive to change out, you only need to remove one drive and look at its serial number...
Step 1: Identify bad drive serial number using Areca's tools
Step 2: Turn off the computer
Step 3: Remove what you think is the bad drive based on following your numbered cable method, marked hot-swap bays, whatever
Step 4: Verify that the serial number matches the "bad drive" serial number from step 1; if it does great, proceed; if it does not match, go back to step 3
Step 5: Change out the CORRECT drive - that's the bottom line for this whole procedure
Cheers,
Jim

I have an external hard drive, can I set a password on this? The drive is already populated with data

I have an external hard drive, can I set a password on this? The drive is already populated with data

ITs an old Iomega 100gb external HD that has about 90gb of music on it. The Macbook has a 500gb HD. I would like to put the iTunes library on the internal HD so I have room to expand.
Phil0124 wrote:
You can copy it to the internal hard drive as long as it fits on it. How big is your library, and how big is your internal HD?
The only thing you do not want to do is over-stuff the internal hard drive. The OS needs some space to operate correctly, so if your iTunes library uses up more than say 80 to 85% of the internal HD's available space it may not be a good idea to transfer it over.
With that said, the internal HD will provide slightly faster access to the library than the external would, but other than that, you can point iTunes to the external drive just fine.

How can I reformat my external hard drive from the time machine format to regular format?

Ok so when first starting out I got an external hard drive for my time machine, little did I know I would run out of space really fast and would need to buy a bigger and better hard drive. Now that I did that, I have my old hard drive that I would like to use for copying material form my laptop to my desktop. However, it is still set as my time machine and tries to back up my lap top every time I plug it in. Also, it says that about half of it is still filled with stuff. I erased everything on it. I just want to reformat it so that it is like I just bought it.

Tirrel wrote:
I had the same idea as you however when I tried going to Disk Utility and I tried to erase it an error message came up telling me that it is unable to erase.
Unable to erase, or unable to unmount?
If Time Machine is trying to back up to it, or some other process is using it, Disk Utility won't be able to unmount it. Turn Time Machine OFF; if you have the drive open via the Finder or any other app, close it or quit the app(s).
At worst, start up from your Install disc or other alternate source and erase it from there. If you're not sure how to do that, see the yellow box in #1 of Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks.

How can I reformat my portable hard drive?

I have a Seagate 1TB portable hard drive, connected by USB to my MacBook Pro.
I use it as my Time Machine.
I have been getting error messages saying the drive is not working.
I have tried to repair it via Disk Utility but get this message:
Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
1. How can I repair it and protect the files I have on it?
2. Alternatively, how can I wipe it and start again as a new Time Machine?
Thank you

In Disk Utility select that external drive then click the Partition tab. Then select One partition from the Partition Layout drop down and make sure it is set to a GUID partition table, that is under the Options button, and the format is set to Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Then Click the Apply Button. If the drive is still good it will be partitions and formatted and then can be used for a TM backup drive.
But I suspect either the drive is failing or the electronics in the drive enclosure are failing. In the first case there isn't much you can do about a failing hard drive except replace it. On the second part if the enclosure electronics are failing then you can take the physical hard drive out that enclosure and connect it to your mac with a SATA to USB adapter or put it in another enclosure.
Then you have the simple fact the Apple Mac notebook computers always seem to have a problem with these USB Bus powered external hard drives. It seems the USB port on Mac notebook don't put out enough power on the USB port to fully power up these type of drives. They do some times but not always. One work around for that is to use a Y USB cable that connect to 2 USB ports at the same time to supply more power to the drive.

Time machine wanting t reformat my external hard drive????

I have had an exteral hard drive since before i'v had my imac. But when i select my external drive in the time machine set-up, it says "you most reformat this drive - doing this you may loose all your files". I don't won't to loose my files, but would like to use time machine. What can i do?

Time Machine needs a partition of its own - get iPartition and partition your external so the TM can use one, and your data will still be on the other.

How do i reformat a external hard drive back to fat32

i have an external hard drive that worked on windows then i installed it onto a mac book pro laptop and i emptied it now it does not work how do i reformat it with a mac computer

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

How do I clean/ reformat partitioned internal hard drive Windows 7 Side on MacBook Pro 17"

Hello,
I would like to clean up / reformat the Windows 7 side of my partitioned hard drive, and then re-install.
Any direction - advise will be appreciated.

Have you tried booting directly to the Windows 7 DVD instead of running setup.exe from Boot Camp? Hold down "Option" as soon as you hear the chime on restart, and eventually you'll be presented with available boot options.
Otherwise, then, yes, Disk Utilities would be the way to go. Mount your Boot Camp partition in the sidebar to the left, and then choose to Erase the partition as FAT32. That should set you up to be able to write to that partition during the install process.
But I recommend booting from the DVD directly first, though.
HTH,
S.

Is there anything I can do short of reformatting the external hard drive?

After 5 years of good service my external hard drive isn't working right with Time Machine. Here's the note I sent to a an AppleCare person I talked to this afternoon:
Disk Utility couldn't repair the disk.
I got red messages:
Incorrect number of file hard links
Invalid catalog record type
The volume OWC Mercury Elite AL Pro couldn't be verified completely.
After I rebooted using my hard drive it didn't even appear as a disk under the 1.5 TB OEM firewire line and I had to reset it again like we did before by pulling the plug for 30 seconds.
Okay, is there anything else I can do to short of reformatting the disk?
If not, how do I reformat it?
During the phone conversation he seemed certain that reformatting and losing 5 years of Time Machine backups would be the only solution if Disk Utility wouldn't repair the external drive, but is there anything else I might try?
I'm using OS 10.6.8 a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac.
Thanks!

Drive Partition and Format
1. 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 Utilities menu.
If you are preparing an external or a non-startup drive, then 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. 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. 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 GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
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 Security 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.

Disk Utilities says: Reformat your Macbook hard drive and restore. How?

I am using Time Machine which is making accurate backups of my silver Sept 2008 Macbook.
Now trying to find an approved step-by-step process to:
1. Reformat my disc.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
3. Reinstall my Boot Camp partition
4. Reinstall my Macbook from Time Machine + MobileMe + iPad + portable hard drive.
NOTE: I can't find my original iLife discs. I am stuck in sunny Dubai, so there is no intelligent Mac store nearby.
Is there a location that shows this? For 24 hours I have been reading posts but none take you thru on a step by step basis. Surely the manufacturer has a page which displays this?
Thanks, in breathless anticipation, James.

1. Reformat my disc.
o Insert the Snow Leopard DVD and double-click the Install Mac OS X icon. A window appears with two choices: Utilities and Continue. Click Utilities.
o You now have two other choices: Go Back and Restart. Click Restart.
o After a few minutes, the installer will display the “Install Mac OS X” screen.
o Choose Utilities > Disk Utility.
o In the list on the left, select the volume you want to erase.
o Click the Erase button near the top of the window to display erase options.
o Make sure Volume Format is set to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and click Erase.
o In the confirmation dialog, click Erase again. Disk Utility erases the disk, which takes just a few seconds.
o Choose Disk Utility > Quit Disk Utility. You should find yourself back on the “Install Mac OS X” screen.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
o On the “Install Mac OS X” screen, click Continue.
o The Software License Agreement appears. Click Agree to proceed with the installation.
o Select the volume you just erased.
o You will now have the opportunity to modify your selections of optional software.
o Click Install.
3. Reinstall my Boot Camp partition
Check out this Apple Support document: Boot Camp
Installation & Setup Guide
4. Reinstall my Macbook from Time Machine + MobileMe + iPad + portable hard drive.
o Make sure the Time Capsule is attached to your Mac to help expedite the restore.
o Insert your Mac OS X Install DVD and insert it in your MacBook’s optical drive.
o. Restart your MacBook. Immediately after you hear the startup chime, press and hold the C key until you see the gray Apple logo on the screen.
o. Click through the language selection screen.
o Choose Utilities > Restore System from Backup and click Continue.
o Select your Time Machine backup volume and click Continue again.
o If the Time Machine disk contains backups for more than one Mac, select the one you want from the Restore From pop-up menu. Then select the particular backup you want to restore. Click Continue.
o On the Select a Destination screen, select your MacBook's internal disk. Click Restore.
Time Machine should restore your data. When it finishes, follow the instructions to restart your computer.

Reformatting a WD hard drive to factory setting

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