Formatting HDD to work with Mac

[MrMinor]

I just switched from PC to Mac. I have an external HDD that I used with the PC that is NTFS. I understand I need to format it as HSF+ so that I can use it with Time machine. I have never formatted a drive before. How do I do this?

 

[misterredman]

I just switched from PC to Mac. I have an external HDD that I used with the PC that is NTFS. I understand I need to format it as HSF+ so that I can use it with Time machine. I have never formatted a drive before. How do I do this?

You need to use Disk Utility, that is found in the Applications/Utility folder. You will loose all your data of course, so you will eventually need a back up.

basically you need to follow the instructions found here:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/8493.html

If you want to format the whole drive as HFS+ select the whole drive.

You should maybe think about changing the partitioning scheme from MBR to Apple partitioning scheme or GUID. GUID will also let you boot from a system partition on the external drive on your intel mac.

 

[MrMinor]

Thanks misterredman. I will read through this and give it a go. The drive is empty right now so I am not worried about loosing anything.

 

[MrMinor]

OK I read through this and started to try it. It does not say HFS+ anywhere. I am guessing I just pick one of the Max OS choices, but which one?

 

[misterredman]

OK I read through this and started to try it. It does not say HFS+ anywhere. I am guessing I just pick one of the Max OS choices, but which one?

Mac OS X Extended journaled is usually a good choice (it is in fact HFS+J).

 

[MrMinor]

Thanks. That looks like it worked.