ReFormat Mac HD question

[mzambizi]

I am new to the Mac platform and am used to reformatting PC's. I have a MacBook Pro w/ OS 10.4.11. It seems easy to reformat the mac but i have just one question. When in the Disk Utility there is the option to format the 'Volume' called "Macintosh HD" or the option to format the physical Hard Drive, in my case a Fujitsu. If i format the physical drive Toshiba, it seems it will erase the Volume Macintosh HD. If this is the case, after formatting do i have to go into Partition to create a new Volume called Macintosh HD or whatever i decide to call it?? or should i just format the Volume Macintosh HD to begin with and not worry about formatting the physical drive. I would appreciate advice on formatting both and what the difference may be.I tried doing on search on this question, but nobody differentiates b/w formatting either. Also, any idea on time between zeros or 7-pass on a 120 GB hard drive?? -thanks

 

[Cave Man]

If you only want one volume, it doesn't matter. If you want two or more volumes on a physical drive, you have to click on that drive (and not the indented name below it) and a new "Partition" tab becomes available in Disk Utility. Click on this tab and from the pull-down menu choose the number of partitions you want. If you're using this as a boot drive for an Intel Mac, click on the Options button to make sure it's set as GUID partition table. For a PPC Mac, it needs to be APM.