Tica
I am supposed to format my new external hard drive before I can use it with my Mac. The instructions tell me I need the Erase option in the Disk Utility but I can't find out how to access the Disk Utility. Can someone help?
Answer
Not sure why you say you are "supposed to format". Why not just use it as is? You can use FAT32 format with Mac, no problem. If it has NTFS format right out of the box, well, yeah, that should be formatted to FAT32, or as it is shown in Disk Utility, "MS-DOS file system". But you don't select the "Partition" tab. For non-Windows operating systems, the term "partition" is used only to designate one of the "divisions" of a physical drive, in the same sense that a room "partition" divides a room into more than one section. You should select the "Erase" tab. Although Windows systems do not list the word "Erase" related to drives, that is the term used in Mac OS to indicate format.
To open Disk Utility, get to the Finder by clicking on the desktop. Then click on "Go" in the menu bar and choose "Utilities". Then click on Disk Utility. Select the drive and then select the "Erase" tab. Choose the format "MS-DOS file system". If you choose the format "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", you will have a disk that works with Mac or Windows systems with MacDrive installed so just don't do it unless you plan to use the drive only with Macs and you want better reliability than FAT32. You do not need to create small partitions for FAT32 although this idea is common. The Windows XP installer format option says you cannot create a partition size larger than 32GB but that is truly a limit set by that particular format application. Anytime I want to install Windows XP and use FAT32, I boot to a Windows 2000 SP4 CD which does not have this limitation and format from there, and then I restart to the Windows XP CD and install, no problem. There is no partition limit (based on today's available drive sizes) using Apple's Disk Utility.
By the way, Disk Utility can "secure erase" to the level of 35 pass overwrite, see link below.
Not sure why you say you are "supposed to format". Why not just use it as is? You can use FAT32 format with Mac, no problem. If it has NTFS format right out of the box, well, yeah, that should be formatted to FAT32, or as it is shown in Disk Utility, "MS-DOS file system". But you don't select the "Partition" tab. For non-Windows operating systems, the term "partition" is used only to designate one of the "divisions" of a physical drive, in the same sense that a room "partition" divides a room into more than one section. You should select the "Erase" tab. Although Windows systems do not list the word "Erase" related to drives, that is the term used in Mac OS to indicate format.
To open Disk Utility, get to the Finder by clicking on the desktop. Then click on "Go" in the menu bar and choose "Utilities". Then click on Disk Utility. Select the drive and then select the "Erase" tab. Choose the format "MS-DOS file system". If you choose the format "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", you will have a disk that works with Mac or Windows systems with MacDrive installed so just don't do it unless you plan to use the drive only with Macs and you want better reliability than FAT32. You do not need to create small partitions for FAT32 although this idea is common. The Windows XP installer format option says you cannot create a partition size larger than 32GB but that is truly a limit set by that particular format application. Anytime I want to install Windows XP and use FAT32, I boot to a Windows 2000 SP4 CD which does not have this limitation and format from there, and then I restart to the Windows XP CD and install, no problem. There is no partition limit (based on today's available drive sizes) using Apple's Disk Utility.
By the way, Disk Utility can "secure erase" to the level of 35 pass overwrite, see link below.
How do i back up the data from my external hard drive to my mac?
tariq b
Here's my problem: I just got a new mac, and i have all my data on my hard drive. My hard drive isn't configured to function with macs. In order to configure my hard drive to work with my mac i have to format it and then it will give mew the option to chose a 'mac+windows' configuration. When i try to manually copy the data i keep getting errors and its just impossible. is there a way to easily copy the data from my hard drive to my mac so that i can format it??
Answer
I will give you my answer for this question:
"Can I use one HDD with both OS X and Windows?"
Maybe that is not your real question, but how could anyone guess?
You say "In order to configure my hard drive to work with my mac i have to format it."
Format means erase... and if the file system is different, create a new file system. Erase means all data is lost, gone forever. Is that what you want?
You say "and then it will give mew the option to chose a 'mac+windows' configuration" What is "it"? Do you mean Disk Utility? No way. The options are "Mac OS Extended", "MS-DOS File System" and "NTFS". Unless you make some special changes, "Mac" format is for Mac OS only, and NTFS is not for Mac OS. "MS-DOS File System" (a.k.a. Fat-32) is not a good choice for a large drive volume.
You say "When i try to manually copy the data i keep getting errors." Tell us the exact words in the error message. I can copy files from any Windows formatted HDD to my Mac OS X HDD with no errors, and I have done it several hundred times over the past five years with various Macs and with at least a hundred drives (90% of my students use Windows, and I copy from their drives). Tell us what happens exactly, and we can solve it for you.
To copy files from any NTFS formatted drive volume to a Mac formatted drive volume in OS X, no special software is needed. It just works.
To copy files to an NTFS format drive volume with OS X, install either NTFS-3G or SL-NTFS.
To use one HDD with both OS X and Windows, see the link below.
I will give you my answer for this question:
"Can I use one HDD with both OS X and Windows?"
Maybe that is not your real question, but how could anyone guess?
You say "In order to configure my hard drive to work with my mac i have to format it."
Format means erase... and if the file system is different, create a new file system. Erase means all data is lost, gone forever. Is that what you want?
You say "and then it will give mew the option to chose a 'mac+windows' configuration" What is "it"? Do you mean Disk Utility? No way. The options are "Mac OS Extended", "MS-DOS File System" and "NTFS". Unless you make some special changes, "Mac" format is for Mac OS only, and NTFS is not for Mac OS. "MS-DOS File System" (a.k.a. Fat-32) is not a good choice for a large drive volume.
You say "When i try to manually copy the data i keep getting errors." Tell us the exact words in the error message. I can copy files from any Windows formatted HDD to my Mac OS X HDD with no errors, and I have done it several hundred times over the past five years with various Macs and with at least a hundred drives (90% of my students use Windows, and I copy from their drives). Tell us what happens exactly, and we can solve it for you.
To copy files from any NTFS formatted drive volume to a Mac formatted drive volume in OS X, no special software is needed. It just works.
To copy files to an NTFS format drive volume with OS X, install either NTFS-3G or SL-NTFS.
To use one HDD with both OS X and Windows, see the link below.
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Title Post: Mac disk utility for external hard drive?
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Rating: 100% based on 9998 ratings. 5 user reviews.
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