Trying to format an external drive for imac

Hi I am new to this and have just bought an external drive to back up my imac, 9,1 via time machine. I have followed the instructions in disk utility to erase and reformat, but it is coming back with an error message " could not unmount disk" - can anyone help me get round this please?

An iMac running OS 9.1.x? If so, post to http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=99. If not, since you're mentioning Time Machine, correct your profile information. From Finder->Help->Mac Help: *erase a disk*, returns:
*+To erase a disk:+*
+Open Disk Utility, in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder.+
+Open Disk Utility+
+Select the disk in the list at left, and then click Erase.+
+For more information about erasing, click the Help button (looks like a question mark).+

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I'm trying to find an external drive for the MacPro that will allow me to password protect the external drive in case it is taken. Any suggestions on a very reliable on that is 2TB or a third party software that is compatable with the need I describe?

I'm trying to find an external drive for the MacPro that will allow me to password protect the external drive in case it is taken. Any suggestions on a very reliable one that is 2TB or a third party software that is compatable with the need I describe?

How much of a hurry are you in, and are you considering upgrading to Lion?
File Vault on Snow Leopard only encrypts home folders you select, and doesn't work well with Time Machine.
But Lion will have "full disk encryption" of local or external disks. See File Vault 2 here: http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/features.html

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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?
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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.
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Look at this page for more information on a dual partition drive for Mac and Windows.
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Odd. Which interface between computer and drive are you using?

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'FAT32'
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Hello and Welcome to Apple Discussions. I believe your choices are:
Network the two machines such that you can share the storage space.
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hello,
I am planning to replace the hard drive in my iMac and would like to backup the data onto an external drive using the firewire port.
Can you tell me what kind of drive I should be looking for, and maybe an idea of what it would cost?
Also, I've never used the firewire port before, will there be anything else I need to do other than plug in the external drive.
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arlene

http://www.macsales.com/ and http://www.lacie.com make getting a Firewire 400 drive pretty painless. They include backup software with their drives that is fairly easy to use. I've used both Retrospect Express (included with Macsales drives), and Silverkeeper (included with LaCie drives, or downloadable from http://www.lacie.com ) if you have any questions once you get them. The price varies on how much data you need to backup. I do believe all their current hard drives are bigger than the one that came installed in your iMac originally. So unless you already replaced that one, an 80 GB or higher should be more than sufficient.

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Just keep in mind that SATA1 = ~1.5Gbps and SATA2 = ~3.0 Gbps. Both Thunderbolt and USB3 are way faster than this, so the drive's own bus speed (SATA1 or SATA2) is a limiting factor. imho it would be a waste of your hard earned $$ to buy Thunderbolt or USB3 enclosures for these drives.
Further, hard drive data transfer rates generally top out in the range of 1.0 - 1.4 Gbps (120-190 MB/s) when you factor in the internal buffer-to-platter transfer rate. The drive inside is much slower than the external bus interface. Marketers love to tout the speed of the external bus for obvious reasons, and most people don't know the difference.
Even a so-called eSATA/SATA3 (6Gbps), USB3 (5Gbps) or Thunderbolt (10Gbps) drive is not going to be anywhere as fast as the advertised interface would lead you to believe. Even the Lacie 4TB 2Big Disk (native Thunderbolt, 7200 rpm, RAID0 striped) only has a 327 MB/s (2.6 Gbps) effective data transfer rate.

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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.
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I found s/w called Tuxera NTFS for Mac allowing you to format NTFS on a Mac. Costs $31 but there's a 15 day free trial.
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I think FW drives are in general better performance than USB drives, but there are many variables like how many other devices you have connected, etc... I think most folks would recommend FW drives over USB.
Your model info still doesn't quite narrow down the potential list enough to know if you have FW 400 or FW 800 ports, I think it depends on the display size, only the 24" had the FW800, I'm not really sure.
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So for example if you have FW 400, this means the max theoretical speed is 400Mb/sec, if you have FW 800 then your max speed is 800Mb/sec. Neither of which you will probably ever attain this quoted Max speed, but why spend more on a FW800 drive if you only have FW400 ports on that iMac, unless maybe you plan to use it with a future machine.
You definitely need to free up space on your primary internal disk, free space is needed for temporary files and virtual memory as you use your computer, it can lock up if you lack sufficient free space.
http://www.otherworldcomputing.com/
FW 400 Neptune drives
http://eshop.macsales.com/search/Neptune
FW 800 drives
http://eshop.macsales.com/search/FW800
Striped RAID-0 dual drives, enclosures
http://eshop.macsales.com/search/RAID+0
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You'd get problems. The ports are equal though.
http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/firewire/topic2199.html
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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

I want to format my external drive so that my new imac and my pc can read and write ,what should i do?

i want to format my external drive so that my new imac and my pc can read

Start by partitioning the drive as required for the Mac:
Drive Partition and Format
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 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.
Now click on the Erase tab in the main menu, then select ExFAT from the Format Type dropdown menu. Click on the Erase button. This format is read/write on both the Mac and the PC. If you have a problem with it on the PC, then format the drive the same way using the Windows formatter.

Trying to format an external drive for imac

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