August 01, 2012

How to Format Mac OS X Hard Drive

If your data backup needs have risen or you want to re-install your Mac OS X, you can format your Mac hard drive to accommodate them. Formatting a hard drive can prove little cumbersome in the absence of proper instructions. So I am discussing here how you can format your Mac OS X hard drive in a few easy steps. Check them below:
Things you will need:
  • Mac computer
  • Mac Hard Drive
  • A SATA/ATA cable to connect Mac hard drive to the Mac computer
1. Before you format your Mac hard drive, make sure that you take a backup of your important data files, music, or videos etc. Formatting will erase the entire data on your Mac hard drive. So, do not forget to back up your data. You can restore it after the hard drive has been formatted.
2. Make sure that your hard drive is connected to your Mac computer. Turn on your Mac if it’s not already turned on. Double-click Macintosh HD on your Mac desktop screen. Double-click Applications> Utilities> Disk Utility. You will now see a list of the available drives on your Mac in the left hand panel.
3. Click a drive that needs formatting and then click the Erase tab on the navigation bar. From the Volume Format box, select a format option. You can select the default format option viz. Mac OS Extended-(Journaled). If your format requirements are different, select the desired option. You can also refer to your Apple user support manual for the same. 


4. Type the name of your drive and click the Erase button. When prompted, click the Erase button again to confirm the action. Wait while your Mac drive is being formatted. When done, you will see the drive appearing along with other drives in the left hand panel. You can now restore your backup on the newly formatted drive.  
5. This method was designed to format any external Mac OS X hard drive that you attach your Mac. If you want to format the internal (system) Mac OS X hard drive, the procedure will remain exactly the same as mentioned above. However, you will need to boot your Mac using the original Mac OS X installation DVD.

1 comment:

  1. A hard drive wipe is highly recommended by experts. This is because they know that reading data has been overwritten by simple shredders. The problem is the system, when it operates the recovery process, can still get some of the files deleted. But with the shredder, this wont happen. Some users are worried about professional sleuths and getting the information that they protected from their hard drive because they weren't able to completely disk wipe it. Well, that wouldn't be a problem if it was overwritten.

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