How to reformat and partition a new external hard drive for backup.

Depending on the type of external hard drive you purchase, it may not be formatted properly to work with your Mac. The easiest thing to do is to reformat any external drive before you use it.

WARNING

Formatting the drive will erase any data on the drive. Make sure you back up any data you want to keep before proceeding.

1. Connect the external hard drive to your Mac with the FireWire or the USB cable (if you have both, use FireWire). Some hard drives need to be plugged into a power outlet or have an “on” switch hidden somewhere.
2. Open Disk Utility from Macintosh HD/Applications/Utilities.
3. You should see the external hard drive listed in the left pane of the Disk Utility. It will usually be listed twice. Once with the capacity of the drive and its technical name and then indented below you’ll see the drive’s name as it appears on your desktop. Select the listing for your drive with its capacity and technical name.
4. Then select the Partition pane from the options in the upper center area.
5. In the pop-up menu under Volume Scheme, choose “One Partition.”
6. Give the partition a name.
7. From the Format pop-up box, select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled).”
8. MOST IMPORTANT STEP: Select the Options button below the partition boxes. If you are using the drive with Intel-based Macs select “GUID Partition Table.” If you are using the drive with PowerPC-based Macs (G4, G5), select “Apple Partition Map.” Click OK.
9. Click Apply and then after reading the confirmation dialog, click Partition or Erase.

Published March 24, 2009 12:00 PM
Last modified on June 16, 2009 3:35 PM