Hard drive help needed.. i dont have disk utility!

[Slothlover]

I am going away travelling and need to back up all my stuff off of my mac for the first time.. (pics, music etc the usual).

I brought a WD Elements 500GB External Hard Drive and when i plug it into my mac book (OSx) it appears in finder, and the desktop but i can't drag and drop nothing into it. Apparantly i have to format it!?

So have researched about formatting it, but i don't have "Disk Utility" in my utilities!!?? My Mac was given to me from a friend second hand so i don't have the disks etc to get it. Any other way of formatting my Hard drive or a link to download disk utilities or any alternatives!? x x Please help x x x

 

[Dave Braine]

You could try here:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=e...ity+download&meta=&aq=1sx&oq=+apple+"disk+uti

 

[Sandman6]

I'm also a total Mac novice - I have just bought an Iomega 1Tb external HD and desperately trying to figure out how to format it thru Utilities?

Any pointers gratefully received!

 

[old-wiz]

I'm also a total Mac novice - I have just bought an Iomega 1Tb external HD and desperately trying to figure out how to format it thru Utilities?

Any pointers gratefully received!

usually the disks come formatted. does your computer recognize the disk?
If it's formatted ntfs,the you need disk utiity. It's located in applications>utilities.

 

[Sandman6]

Thanks - it turned out that the mistake I was making was to highlight the Volume, rather than the root drive. All formatted fine and working as it should.

 

[iBlob]

Also disk utilities would be on your boot disk if any one else can't find their disk utility