Note that when you try to connect this drive to a Windows machine, you’ll get an error message stating that “ The volume does not contain a recognized file system” and you’ll be asked to format it. If you get the info on that drive (select the drive and press CMD + I) you’ll see that it’s formatted as HFS+ (OS X Extended – Journaled).
In addition, you drive will appear on the desktop with the name that you assigned to it. In the Disk Utility window, you should see more detailed information about the formatted drive. You can view details of the process by expanding the arrow next to Show Details.
The disk will be unmounted first, erased, formatted and then remounted. Choose GUID to boot OS X (Intel), MBR to boot Windows/Linux and Apple to boot OS X (PPC).Ĭlick Erase and the process will automatically start. The only time the scheme matters is when you want to boot from the device. The default should be GUID and you should leave it at that value if you don’t plan on using the drive as a bootable drive. If you would also like to enable encryption, you can also choose the (Journaled, Encrypted) option.įor Scheme, you can choose between GUID Partition Map, Master Boot Record or Apple Partition Map. For our purposes, make sure to select OS X Extended (Journaled) for the volume format. Click the Erase button to bring up the erase media dialog. Here you’ll have the options to give your drive a name, choose the format and choose the partition scheme.
