Oct 06, 2019 Want a high level view? Here is what you’re going to do when you format your Seagate External hard drive for your Mac. Plug your Seagate drive into your Mac. Spotlight search Disk Utility. Press return. Pick your Seagate drive under External on the left. Click on Erase at the top. Give your Seagate drive a name. Before you can use it though, you need to properly format or reformat a hard drive so that it will become compatible or readable with the Operating System that you are using. In this guide I will show you how you can properly format/reformat a hard drive for Mac OS. Formatting a hard drive for Windows will be discussed in another article.
- A lot of people including you, storing important data on Seagate external hard drive instead of on your PC/Mac hard drive. The reason is perhaps that Seagate external hard drive has been well known for a long time as one of the most reliable drives for storing data.
- To reformat the drive in Mac OS X: 1. Open Disk Utility ApplicationsUtilitiesDisk Utilities 2. Select the Seagate drive on the left that shows the capacity 3. Select the Partition tab on the right hand side of the Disk Utility Window 4. Select Partition Layout and select 1 partition 5. Next to name you will see untitled 1 where you can name the drive. This will be the name.
Published on October 20th, 2013
How to properly Format/Reformat a hard drive for Mac OS
A hard drive or hard disk can be used in any type of computer, whether for PC (Windows) or for Mac. Before you can use it though, you need to properly format or reformat a hard drive so that it will become compatible or readable with the Operating System that you are using. In this guide I will show you how you can properly format/reformat a hard drive for Mac OS. Formatting a hard drive for Windows will be discussed in another article.
Formatting and Reformatting a hard drive or hard disk is an easy task (if you know how). But it is also dangerous as it can result in loosing data or corrupting the drive when it is not done properly.
Format Seagate Hard Drive For Mac And Pc
Before I proceed, I will be explaining some few things regarding formatting a hard drive. But if you want to know the instructions in formatting and reformatting a hard drive, just scroll down to the instructions below.
First, why do we need to format and/or reformat a hard drive. I will name some reasons, common reasons why we need to do this.
1. Some hard drives are already pre-formatted for a certain platform or system, like when you buy it out of the box it’s already formatted for Mac or Windows. But when it is not, we need to format the drive.
2. Hard drives are formatted so that a particular platform or operating system will be able to read and recognize the drive, whether it is an internal drive or external drive.
3. Hard drives are reformatted because sometimes we need to do clean up and we just want to wipe everything out that is written in the drive.
4. Formatting/Reformatting a drive can also remove soft bad sectors. But not necessarily always. Sometimes when a drive has a physical bad sector, reformatting it could spread the damage.
5. We reformat a hard drive if we are switching from one platform to another (Windows to Mac and vice verse)
Back to the main topic, below is a step by step instruction on how to Format/Reformat a hard drive for Mac OS.
Warning: FORMATTING and REFORMATTING A DRIVE ERASES EVERYTHING. Proceed with caution. Do backup your files first.
Formatting/Reformatting a hard drive for a Mac
1. Open Disk Utility by clicking Finder -> Applications -> Utilities and finally click Disk Utility.
2. Choose the hard drive that you want to format or reformat. Make sure that it is the correct hard drive!
3. Go to the Partition Tab
4. Click the Current Volume Scheme drop down menu and choose One (1) partition.
5. Click Options, and from the Partition Scheme provided choose “GUID Partition Table” radio button or “Apple Partition Map” radio button.
6. Then click OK. Then key-in in the other options like Volume Name, Format and Size.
In this juncture, in the Format option, choose Mac OS for Mac OS X. Or MS-DOS File System otherwise.
In this juncture, in the Format option, choose Mac OS for Mac OS X. Or MS-DOS File System otherwise.
7. Click Apply and the Partition Disk screen will open.
8. Click Partition. During this time the drive or volume will dismount and it will be partitioned and formatted. DO NOT TURN OFF OR RESTART your computer during this time!
Time Machine may pop up asking you to use the newly formatted drive for backups. Pdf pro for mac. Just cancel it to proceed.
9. After that, just exit Disk Utility and your done!
Hope this “format/reformat a hard drive for Mac” guide helped!
Below are some recommended Internal Hard drive and External Hard Drives that you might like. All of them are best sellers.
Currently Best Selling Internal Hard Drives
1. WD Blue 1 TB Desktop Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, 7200 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64 MB Cache – WD10EZEX
2. WD Red 3 TB NAS Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, SATA III, 64 MB Cache – WD30EFRX
3. Western Digital WD1002FAEX Caviar Black 1 TB SATA III 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Internal Desktop 3.5″ Hard Drive
4. Seagate Barracuda 3 TB HDD SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 64MB Cache 7200 RPM 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive ST3000DM001
5. Western Digital 4 TB WD Green SATA III 5400 RPM 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive WD40EZRX
Currently Best Selling External Hard Drives
1. WD My Passport Ultra Portable External Hard Drive USB 3.0 with Auto and Cloud Backup
2. WD My Cloud Personal Cloud Storage
3. WD My Passport Portable External Hard Drive Storage USB 3.0
4. WD My Passport for Mac Portable External Hard Drive Storage USB 3.0
5. Seagate Backup Plus USB 3.0 Desktop External Hard Drive
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> Mac Data Wipe > How to Format Seagate External Hard Drive under Mac OS?
by Shirly Chen, 2016-11-10
'Hi, anyone can tell me how to format a Seagate external hard drive on Mac? I am going to sell my 2TB Seagate external hard drive. Before sending it away, I want to make sure all the data on it has been permanently erased. So I try to format it on my Mac. However, I didn’t find a way to format Seagate external hard drive under Mac OS. Is it possible to do this?' – Manie
Formatting is the best way to give an old Seagate external hard drive its new life. It is easy to format a Seagate external hard drive on Windows PC. However, if you want to format a Seagate external hard drive on Mac, it is not as easy as formatting it on a PC. Cause this feature is ‘hidden’ inside your Mac OS. And in some cases, you need both formatting Seagate external hard drive and permanently wiping data on it. Such as these cases:
- You will resell, donate or give away your old Seagate external hard drive.
- You are going to lend your Seagate external hard drive with someone else or share it with other people.
- You are disposing your old Seagate external hard drive or throwing it into trash.
- You plan to send your Seagate external hard drive to be repaired.
In the cases above, you need to format your Seagate external hard drive and permanently destroy all sensitive data on it, leaving no chance for data recovery. Only Mac data erasure software can achieve the double effects. DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac offers secure and easy solution to format Seagate external hard drive and permanently wipe all existing data and history data.
Format Seagate external hard drive with Super Eraser for Mac
DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac gives clear way to format Seagate external hard drive under Mac OS because it is so easy-to-use. You just need to connect your Seagate external hard drive with your Mac and run this Mac data erasure software to format it, here is the instructions.
Select mode 'Wipe Volume/Device' –> Select your Seagate external hard drive -> Click on 'Wipe Now' button. Then it will automatically format your Seagate external hard drive and wipe all existing/history data. You will get a brand new Seagate external hard drive.
Since this Mac data erasure will permanent wipe all data on your Seagate external hard drive while it is formatting your Seagate external hard drive under Mac OS. So please back up your important files before you run it to format your Seagate external hard drive. It also supports to format Mac hard drives, USB flash drives, external hard drives, digital cameras, SD cards, etc under Mac OS.
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