I bought a new WD portable HD and when I plug it into my MacBook Air it won't allow me to put anything on it. My friend mentioned I need to go to Disk Utility and format it properly. Does anyone know the correct steps so it works every time?
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Portable HD reformat
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I have Disk Utility up but what do I click from there? I clicked on the HD but do I partition or what?
Depends whether you want a partition, or not. There's no real need to, but it's a personal choice.
You have to have at least one partition on a disk to make it usable. Click on the Partition tab in Disk Utility. Near the bottom you should see a button labeled Options. Click that and choose GUID.
Save that setting and Type in a name for the new disk. Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the Format and click Apply (Warning: This will erase any data on the drive.)
If you want more than one Partition on the drive, (each partition will appear as a separate drive to the OS) change the volume scheme to your desired setup.
Save that setting and Type in a name for the new disk. Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the Format and click Apply (Warning: This will erase any data on the drive.)
If you want more than one Partition on the drive, (each partition will appear as a separate drive to the OS) change the volume scheme to your desired setup.
