Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

How to format external hard drive for Mac?

virginblue4

virginblue4

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 15, 2012
2,036
727
United Kingdom
My western digital my passport has just arrived and it says on the box that it needs to be formatted for OS X. I'm sure it's simple but I won't be at home with my iMac for a few more hours, so thought I would ask on here.

So what do I do to format the external hard drive for use with Mac?
 
virginblue4 said:
My western digital my passport has just arrived and it says on the box that it needs to be formatted for OS X. I'm sure it's simple but I won't be at home with my iMac for a few more hours, so thought I would ask on here.

So what do I do to format the external hard drive for use with Mac?
Click to expand...

Use the Disk Utility that is part of OSX. You can choose to partition the disk if you want to then format the partitions. It's very straightforward.
 
virginblue4 said:
So what do I do to format the external hard drive for use with Mac?
Click to expand...

Plug the disk into your mac. It will probably mount, but with a non-mac format. Then open disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app) and select the disk and follow the instructions to create a HFS+ disk, with or without encryption depending on your preference.

If it doesn't mount, then you will get a dialog saying that the disk is unreadable. Follow the instructions to format at that point.

HTH
SS
 
virginblue4 said:
My western digital my passport has just arrived and it says on the box that it needs to be formatted for OS X. I'm sure it's simple but I won't be at home with my iMac for a few more hours, so thought I would ask on here.

So what do I do to format the external hard drive for use with Mac?
Click to expand...

Just follow this guide to format to Mac OS Extended using Disk Utility.
 
virginblue4 said:
If I choose to restore a file from time machine back to the present day will it be readable if I send it to a windows device? I just read the first comment saying how the files won't be compatible with windows?
Click to expand...

Yes, that will work. It is just that a Mac OS Extended formatted drive will not be readable on a default Windows install. But it won't hurt the files themselves, they will still be the same. So if you pull a file off the WD onto the Mac then send it to a Windows machine, it will still be the same file and will work fine.
 
Weaselboy said:
Yes, that will work. It is just that a Mac OS Extended formatted drive will not be readable on a default Windows install. But it won't hurt the files themselves, they will still be the same. So if you pull a file off the WD onto the Mac then send it to a Windows machine, it will still be the same file and will work fine.
Click to expand...

Great! Thank you very much for your help, it is really appreciated! :D

----------

I put it in and it is automatically asking me if I want to use this for Time Machine backup. Does this mean that it does not need to be formatted?
 
virginblue4 said:
Great! Thank you very much for your help, it is really appreciated! :D

----------

I put it in and it is automatically asking me if I want to use this for Time Machine backup. Does this mean that it does not need to be formatted?
Click to expand...

Yep... just tell it yes your want to use it for Time Machine. As I recall it automagically formats it for you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back