So you’ve got an external hard drive that you want to use with your Mac. Wether its a brand new drive or an existing drive with files on it, you’ll probably want to format this drive.

Mac OS X makes this task rather simple, plugin the new drive and open Disk Utility ( Macintosh HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility ) After you’ve opened Disk Utility, you should see your new external drive listed in the left pane.

Disk Utility

Click on your new external drive and in the right pane, click on Erase and on the bottom right, click Erase once more, for Volume Format you’ll want to specify Mac OS Extended (Journaled) if you’ll be using this drive for your Mac ONLY. If you want to use this drive on a Windows PC you’ll need to select the FAT 32 Volume Format.

written by admin