URGENT HELP: How to reformat an external hard drive?!

We purchased a Desk Hammer external hard drive with USB. My hubby plugged it into his Mac G4/OS 8.6 and when it was recognized, he selected to format it for Mac only. We needed it to be ISO Whatever so I can use it on my Windows systems too. The Desk Hammer people are no help with how to get access to this thing and reformat it (in fact, WARNING they say they do not even support Mac usage for these drives!). What can I do to reformat it to work on the Windows side? thanks for any help....
Mac G4 Mac OS 8.6 or Earlier Mac OS is 8.6

Windows machines support Windows formats some of the time.
The Mac formats and supports many common formats, and is nice about it.
You use the exact same utility you used to format it for the Mac, only you select MS-DOS as the type. If the drive is of a modest size, that is all you need to do.
The Mac will also happily read and write files on it, even though it is an MS-DOS drive. It may not properly show their Icons (everything may be generic MS-DOS documents) until the files are copied to a Mac drive.
A very large drive will need a third-party utility to format all the space on it into Windows format.
ISO-whatever and High Sierra and a few others are CD-only formats, you will not be able to format a Hard drive to that format.

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URGENT HELP: Need to reformat an external hard drive for Mac/Win!

We got a Desk Hammer external hard drive and my hubby chose to format it as Mac Only when it first initialized. We needed it to be formatted for Mac/Win usage. Now we cannot figure otu how to reinitialize and reformat it. It's been years since I messed with his Mac. Help--right now we just have a big old doorstop instead of a hard drive! BTW Desk Hammer is no help with support (I guess that's why they were on sale); their website isn't even complete!

Use the Disk Utility application found in /Applications/Utilities to format the Drive as MS-DOS File System. This will be readable by both Mac and Windows platforms.
Hope this helps! bill
1 GHz Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

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 to reformat an external hard drive after time machine?

I have an external hard drive upon which I put movie files that I view through a Sony box (like the Roku box). I brought my MacBook in for a repair and connected the same external HD and used Time Machine to make a back up. It did reformat it in order to do so, but since the Sony box isn't a pc or mac I didn't think it would make a difference, but now the Sony box won't recognize HD. Is there a way to reformat it on my MacBook so that I can use it on the Sony box again, or do I need to reformat it with a Windows computer? I had no issues when transferring files only and using the Sony box.
If you give any instructions, please write them out specifically, don't just post "you have to partition it" and leave it at that. I am computer challenged when it comes to these things. Think instructions for a person one step above being vaguely aquainted with a Mac please. Thanks.

You can find a decent guide to formatting your drive here.

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

How do i transfer external hard drive content to macbook pro?

How do i transfer external hard drive content back to my macbook pro?
I do not see the hard drive icon or a back up icon, where should it be?

What kind of drive is it - a large drive with a power cord, or a portable drive? Can you tell if the drive itself is actually on? (Is there a light, or a power switch, etc, can you hear it?)
How is it attached to the Mac?
On your Mac, click on the desktop, then go to the Finder menu (top left), click Preferences, then under the General tab, make sure that everything is ticked.
If that works, you should then get the external HD icon appearing on your desktop.
Hope that helps.
Matt

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

New MacBook pro how do I add external hard drive which has my entire iTunes library on it. Do I just drag external drive icon into iTunes preference box that shows where new itunes library is now located ie. On the MacBook pro.

how do I add external hard drive which contains my entire iTunes library to new MacBook Pro. i want to keep iTunes library on external hard drive. But I want all my iTunes information: artist, songs, albums, playlists on my new MacBook Pro. I know about going to iTunes preferences- advanced-itunes media folder location. At this point I don't know what to do Do I drag external icon into iTunes media folder location box. I want to keep music files on external hard drive. I don't want to use macbook pro memory for my very large music files.

I will request that your query be relocated to the iPhoto forum where knowledgeable iPhoto users will be able to assist you.
Ciao.

HT201250 how do i add external hard drive to my time machine back up

how do i add external hard drive to my time machine back up so that I may view the files independently on apple tv please?

To elaborate on above. I am looking to add about 300gig of photos on an external hard drive to TC.
Once I do this I believe I can then have itunes source its photos from TC without having them stored directly on my iMac?
Then I am assuming once I keep itunes on with home sharing I can stream these photos through Apple TV?
My inital problem is getting the photos onto TC in an individual folder not just a backup folder....is that possible or what would you suggest please?

How do I access external hard drive connected to AirPort Extreme via iPad

Hello,
How do I access external hard drive connected to AirPort Extreme via iPad / windows laptop.
I donot have a Mac and I use windows laptop.

For your iPad, you will need an app, like FileBrowser, to access the external drive.
For your Windows laptop, you would access the drive like any other network share. The basic format is: \\<servername>\<sharename>, where, in this case, the servername is the base station name and the sharename is the name of the external drive.

How do I use external hard drive

how do I use external hard drive and Photos? I keep getting a msg that there is not enough free space on your photo library volume - i even bought 500Gb of space on iCloud.... that didn't even work please help

1. Drag the library to a volume formatted as Mac OS Extended, launch Photos with the Option key held down, select Other Library, and choose it. Alternatively, drag it to the Photos icon in the Dock.
2. iCloud storage space is separate from that on the computer.
(126243)

HT1338 how to copy a external hard drive to other or copy songs from one to another

how to copy a external hard drive to other or copy songs from one to another

Don't understand exactly what you want to do. Can you restate your question?
You posted in the OS 10.3 forum instead of the MacBook Pro forum. To get answers to your question, next time post in the proper forum. See https://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa I'll request that Apple relocate your post.
Also you show iOS 6.1.4 on your profile. iOS 6.1.4 only runs on a iPhone, not a MacBook Pro.
 Cheers, Tom

I am looking to back up my MAC, and I need to know how big of an external hard drive I need

I am looking to back up my MAC, and I need to know how big of an external hard drive I need. How do I determine this?

Well, they recommend at least 2 - 3 times the size of your hard drive if you are using Time Machine because that keeps making backups until it runs out of space (and then deletes the oldest to make room for the newest).
However, if you prefer to have a bootable clone as a backup, you need about the same size as your hard drive since it is a perfect copy of your system (unless you want to partition and keep an older clone separately).
So, check to see how large your hard drive is and go from there.

URGENT HELP: How to reformat an external hard drive?!

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