Formatting a new external hd (imac)

dinorock

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Hi all been about 8 yrs since i formatted a new hard drive and i had a lot of help
i have purchased a new 2tb ehd and it has a partition on which is taking up 400gb of space to ? lacie share
Q1 do i need it
Q2 can i just erase the disk in disk utility then re format as 1 partition
any help needs to be in stupid mode i dont do tech on a computer very well all suggestions will need guides thanks in advance mike.
 
cheers rob how do i do that just erase the whole disk and start again?
 
Go to disk utility, you'll find it in the Utilities menu. From disk utility select the drive you want to format and chose PARTITION. Pick a name for the disk and from the format options select either OSX extended ( journaled) for Mac only use or FAT if you want to use it with PC's as well .( All my disks are OSX extended ). Then press APPLY .
 
Chappers said:
Go to disk utility, you'll find it in the Utilities menu. From disk utility select the drive you want to format and chose PARTITION. Pick a name for the disk and from the format options select either OSX extended ( journaled) for Mac only use or FAT if you want to use it with PC's as well .( All my disks are OSX extended ). Then press APPLY .
Click to expand...

Cheers Chappers but the partition part is greyed out so had to erase the disk to get rid of the lacie software hope that makes sense Mike
 
You nay find the drive has several entries in Disk Utility. One probably says laCie and another one has a total unrelated name above it. It's that one you need to select as it's the host name. You should then see the partition option become available. It probably doesn't help if it FAT formatted. Anyway as long as you've got your 400Mb back that's the main thing
 
Easy with Windows
click on computer on main startup screen and you get something like this




"C" is your main hard drive and "D" bolted onto it, leave alone . On mine "F" is a backup drive so yours should be something like, and Drive "E" is for DVD/CD.

All you need to do is right click drive "F" on mine at least and you get a drop down list with format on it
 
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If you may occasionally want to share it with a Windows Machine as well as a Mac, format it with ExFAT.

(Normal FAT has size limitations).

Otherwise just go for Journaled OSX
 
Chappers said:
You nay find the drive has several entries in Disk Utility. One probably says laCie and another one has a total unrelated name above it. It's that one you need to select as it's the host name. You should then see the partition option become available. It probably doesn't help if it FAT formatted. Anyway as long as you've got your 400Mb back that's the main thing
Click to expand...
Ah yes it did have 2 entries I just used the 1st entry it did erase and is now formatted osx journaled which is what I did 1st time around. I remembered that step from last time.
 
It's a Mac OS X is very different I know i started with Windows then moved to Mac
 
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shreds said:
If you may occasionally want to share it with a Windows Machine as well as a Mac, format it with ExFAT.

(Normal FAT has size limitations).

Otherwise just go for Journaled OSX
Click to expand...
Is exfat an option on a Mac ?
 
if its only to be used with mac, format with mac os journalled with disk utility - job done :)
 
Is your laptop windows or Mac? If not sure which to use go for the most compatible
 
can I just make an alternative suggestion. It your storing all your files on a single volume you have no redundancy. If you haven't already got one look at NAS's - Synology, Qnap or WD all produce devices that can be set to back up from an external drive at set intervals. You don't really want to work from the NAS stored files as the lag will be tedious (but you can) then set to backup say daily just ensure that you have a backup plan. Look to get at least a dual bay so two HDDs are mirrored so in effect you then have three copies of your files.

Then you could format to mac osx journalled on the HDD (a native mac format) then if you need access from any windows machines, you can access from the NAS.

Anyhow just a though,
 
terrific said:
can I just make an alternative suggestion. It your storing all your files on a single volume you have no redundancy. If you haven't already got one look at NAS's - Synology, Qnap or WD all produce devices that can be set to back up from an external drive at set intervals. You don't really want to work from the NAS stored files as the lag will be tedious (but you can) then set to backup say daily just ensure that you have a backup plan. Look to get at least a dual bay so two HDDs are mirrored so in effect you then have three copies of your files.

Then you could format to mac osx journalled on the HDD (a native mac format) then if you need access from any windows machines, you can access from the NAS.

Anyhow just a thought,
Click to expand...
makes sense but.... i'm an amateur and don't have any real fear of losing files i do have a cloud storage backup called backblaze seems very good backs up "continuously"
 
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