Problem with external hard drive

[klmclavy]

I have an external hard drive that was used on a PC. I want to use it on a Mac. I went into disk utility and did an erase. (Extended Journaled and in security options changed it to zero out data).
I can now use it on the Mac how ever it is telling me that there is 54.1 MB of used space. I want to have access to this. How do I do it?
Version 10.5.8

 

[rprebel]

When you format a hard drive, that formatting takes up disk space. In this case, 54.1 megabytes of space. I don't believe you can access that. Even if you could, you wouldn't want to. Move one file and suddenly you have to re-reformat your drive.

 

[DoFoT9]

how large is the drive in total? you expect SOME space to be initially taken up for certain things such as hidden files (spotlight, etc).

 

[klmclavy]

Thanks

I was going to use it for my time machine but it is not big enough. I'll just use it for general stuff then.
Thanks again.

 

[DoFoT9]

Thanks

I was going to use it for my time machine but it is not big enough. I'll just use it for general stuff then.
Thanks again.

goodluck with that 2TB external USB hard drives are ~$100 these days btw!