Reformating an external HD for PC to Mac

[IL2AZ]

I have a Seagate HD that I purchased for PC use, now I'm going to buy a mac, can someone please explain how to reformat the drive for mac. I know that I need to secure the data on it somewhere else while I reformat, but wasn't sure of how to reformat it. Once that process is done, can I put the data back on, or is there an intermediate process there as well. Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[rkaufmann87]

I have a Seagate HD that I purchased for PC use, now I'm going to buy a mac, can someone please explain how to reformat the drive for mac. I know that I need to secure the data on it somewhere else while I reformat, but wasn't sure of how to reformat it. Once that process is done, can I put the data back on, or is there an intermediate process there as well. Thanks in advance for the help.

Connect the external HD to the Mac

Open Disk Utility-click on external HD on left pane-click on Erase tab-ensure Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is selected in Format box and click Erase...

NOTE: This will totally wipe that drive clean so make sure you have backed up all your data on the drive to another source before formatting.

 

[DewGuy1999]

Warning, Warning, Will Robinson! Formatting a hard drive erases all data on it, make sure you have a readable backup before attempting.

Formatting & Partitioning a Hard Drive in OS X - Tiger and Leopard

Assuming you'll be running Snow Leopard, the instructions on the above page for Leopard would apply. As far as moving the existing data back after formatting, you can just copy it back to the hard drive, BUT if your temporary location happens to be a PC or you plan on using the hard drive with a PC after formatting be warned that a PC will not be able to read or write to a Mac formatted hard drive without 3rd party software like HFSExplorer.

 

[omtatsat]

If you format it MS-DOS FAT then it can be read by both Mac and Windows systems.

 

[spinnerlys]

If you format it MS-DOS FAT then it can be read by both Mac and Windows systems.

But

FAT32

• Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
• No individual file larger than 4GB.

NTFS

• Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
• Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
• To Read/Write NTFS from Leopard: Install MacFUSEand NTFS-3G. You can install both with NTFS-3Gfor Mac OS X.
• To Read/Write NTFS from Snow Leopard: Guide: Enable native NTFS Read/Write in Snow Leopard
• (Be aware that some are of the opinion that enabling native NTFS in SL is unstable/unreliable, and favor the MacFuse/NTFS-3G method for Snow Leopard)

HFS

• Read/Write HFS from native Mac OS X
• To Read/Write HFS from Windows, Install MacDrive
• To Read HFS (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer