how do i reformat a portable hard drive using my mac powerbook?

Slevin Kel

im using a powerbook laptop

i have a portable drive attached via firewire.

i need to reformat it...


SUB QUESTION: is there any way i can use this drive on my PC once i reformat it? it doesn't show on my PC when i use it...only shows in the bar and i can't double click it to open or use windows formatter on it.


10 points goes to the most clear and easiest answer.

Answer
Yes to both of those things:

- You can reformat it by opening Disk Utility (Applications Folder > Utilities Folder > Disk Utility) and then reformatting it using that application.

Steps:

- In Disk Utility, select the disk or volume in the list on the left.

- Click Erase.

- Choose a format from the Volume Format pop-up menu (select the windows based format).

- Type a name for the disk or volume.

- You do not need to install the Mac OS 9 drivers

- Click Erase.


- You can use the drive on both the mac and a PC by choosing MS-DOS from the Disk Utility application when you're about to reformat.

Mac Portable Hard Drive Help?

h8thecause

I recently bought a SimpleTech portable hard drive. Its a 160gb if that matters. I am working on trying to backup my music by dragging and dropping it on there, but when I plug it in and try to drag, it does not allow me. When I view the info for the portable hard drive, the sharing and permissions says: "I can only read". How would I fix this?

Answer
Check whether the hard disk has "Write Lock". If it is so make sure it is not write locked.

Make sure that the Hard Drive is not formatted as NTFS. Mac does not support writing data to a NTFS volume. Just right click the mounted volume in Finder and select "Get Info". In the Info window check for the "Format:". In case the format is NTFS, it shows "Windows NT Filesystem". [ http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/attachments/maccar/40138d1172094097-using-external-hd-between-mac-pc-picture-1.png ].
If it is so, your Mac will not allow you to write data to that volume.

There are 2 solutions :
1. Make Mac write data to NTFS volume : Install 3rd party NTFS support for Mac. Softwares like "Paragon NTFS" [ http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/ ] allows you to write data to NTFS volume.
2. Reformat the hard disk to Mac Compatible format : This will require you to erase the entire data present in the disk. You can use Disk Utility to reformat the hard disk. If you are not sharing it with Windows PC, you can format it with format as "HFS+" (referred as "Mac OS Extended" in disk utility). In case you intend to share it with Windows "Fat32" will be the format I would recommend. Remember Fat32 does not support files larger than 4GB.

I would recommend the second solution.

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If I plugged a portable hard drive from western digital into my mac, will it be available on PCs as well?

reformat portable hard drive mac image

Marcus Mas

If I plugged a portable hard drive from western digital into my mac, will it be available on PCs as well? I didn't reformat anything, I just put it into the USB port. It didn't even ask if I wanted to do anything of the sort.

Answer
Format must be FAT32.

What will happen if I reformat my iomega eGo Helium for Windows 7?

Rob Sechtm

I have an old mac, and have recently purchased a new Dell XPS laptop that with Widnows 7. I had backed up my files on to an iomega eGo Helium portable hard drive, but it is formatted for use with Mac OSX. If I reformat the hard drive a) will the data be lost and b) will I be able to format it for a mac again?

Answer
a. Yes, all data on the hard drive will be lost, as that is what formatting it implies; all data will be erased.

b. Yes, you will be able to format it again in the future.

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