Would you like to know how to format a hard drive on a Mac? Read on to find out. Formatting a hard drive takes little time on a Mac and is easy to do. This page will guide you through three easy steps of how to format the hard drive of your Mac.

Formatting a hard drive often sounds scary and intimidating. However, it is a rather simple, easy process that takes little of your time. Hard drives, disks, DVDs, and other media all need to be formatted so they can work on your computer in order for you to use them. What happens in the formatting process is this: it writes the basic directory structure onto the disk that is being formatted in order to allow other directories and files to be added. However, an important thing to note about formatting or reformatting a hard drive is that it erases everything previously on the disk. Make sure to copy or save those files on your disk before formatting it if you don't want to lose them. Formatting a hard drive or a disk is basically the same thing as erasing it to be a blank slate. The disk has to be blank in order to be able to format.http://www.sharpened.net/helpcenter/answer.php?58

Take steps to copy or save files on the hard drive you want to format so that they don't become lost or destroyed. This page will give you information and tips on how to format a hard drive on your Mac.

The first step for formatting the hard drive on your Mac is getting set up for it. This means you need to open disk utility on your Mac. This is easy for those who are familiar with their Macs. Type in spotlight (the space where you can type things to search for): disk utility. It will then open up for your use.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQYYVLLAqHI

Now that you've opened disk utility up, it's time to use it. Your disk will show up on the right and show what kind of drive it is. Look on the upper portion of the disk utility panel. You'll see several tabs named as First Aid, Erase, Partition, RAID, and Restore. For purposes of this lesson, you want to choose the Erase tab.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQYYVLLAqHI

Once you click the Erase tab, the panel will change and show erase options. You need to choose a format (you'll find this around the middle of the panel). Choose the MS DOS (FAT) partition. This is the best partition to choose due to its compatibility and ability to run on any computer that has MS DOS including Linux, Macs, and 3BSD.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQYYVLLAqHI

Erasing is the last step of the process. You're not exactly erasing, but formatting your drive. Click on the actual erase button (not tab) in the lower right part of the disk utility panel. It will ask you if you're sure you want to do this--click erase to demonstrate your sureness. Once you click "erase," it will go through a short less-than-ten-second process of first partitioning, formatting the disk, and renaming it “UNTITLED.” You will find these formatted hard drive named "UNTITLED" on your desktop. Find it and rename it however you would like. Congratulations--you've partitioned and formatted your hard drive.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQYYVLLAqHI

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