How to reformat hard drive so appears in My Computer

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tigger

50 posts

Geek

#71593 13-Nov-2010 11:09

Lost my last post checking out signature detail....

Would really appreciate help. Checked out another thread but could not understand how to resolve this issue. I need step by step

I formatted my hard drive to Apple to help daughter move files off her computer onto PC and of course it did not work. The drive did not show up on her new netbook or my PC.

How can I reformat, or even find it to reformat, so appears again in My Computer and is functional please?

I did find my way to disk management at one point and now forget how I got there. I could not see the drive in there at the time but not quite sure what I was looking at anyway.

Thanks for any tips and need a bit of step by step if you would please.

x

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923 posts

Ultimate Geek

#404167 13-Nov-2010 11:12

You do realize that you will lose all data on the disk by formatting it.

Do you still have access to the/a Mac?

tigger

50 posts

Geek

#404169 13-Nov-2010 11:14

I knew about losing data - was not concerned. Yes have access to Apple and does not appear on that either.

tomgeeknz

923 posts

Ultimate Geek

#404174 13-Nov-2010 11:20

What kind of drive is it? Internal or external, USB, Sata or Firewire?

tigger

50 posts

Geek

#404177 13-Nov-2010 11:23

External USB iOmega

tigger

50 posts

Geek

#404180 13-Nov-2010 11:33

Found my way to disk management and the drive appears as Disk 3 - not one of the removable storage ones and partitions are healthy, healthy, unallocated

tomgeeknz

923 posts

Ultimate Geek

#404181 13-Nov-2010 11:33

Open the system drive, usually titled "Macintosh HD." Open Applications, then Utilities and double click the "Disk Utility" program to open it. A window will open giving a list of all the drives currently mounted on the computer.

2
Select the disk that needs to be formatted on the left. It is not possible to format the startup disk unless the system has booted from the Install Disk. It is important to note that formatting the startup disk will permanently erase the data stored on the disk. If you are planning on erasing the startup disk, back up all important files and applications.

3
Click on the "Erase" tab to the right of the list of drives. The window will now display the options for erasing the hard drive and formatting it.

4
Select the Volume Format from the pop-up list. ****FAT-32****

5
Name the hard drive. Type a name for the disk in the field where it asks for the name.

6
Click the erase button. A window will open asking to verify the erase procedure. Click the erase button in this window to start the process of erasing the disk. Once the process is complete, the drive will appear with the name it was given on the left side of the window with the list of drives and on the desktop of the Macintosh computer.

Read more: How to Format a Hard Drive in Mac OS X | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_2063795_format-hard-drive-mac-os.html#ixzz156sI5BFx

Then You will be able to plug it into a windows computer where I suggest formatting it again into NTFS, by right clicking the drive in my computer and selecting "Format.." making sure it is NTFS and clicking go.

tigger

50 posts

Geek

#404183 13-Nov-2010 11:41

Hi - the drive is not showing up on Apple in the disk utility either

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tomgeeknz

923 posts

Ultimate Geek

#404184 13-Nov-2010 11:42

What format is it in?

tigger

50 posts

Geek

#404185 13-Nov-2010 11:51

Not sure it is formatted to either now? When the drive was used to tranfer files from apple to apple, that worked and then when it came to transfer those same files from apple to PC, no options came up to reformat and the drive could not be seen. As a result no files were transferred.

The drive does not show up on Apple disk utility at all but I can see it in disk management on the PC, as Disk 3 Basic online.

.

racie

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#404189 13-Nov-2010 11:54

Hi sorry to but in but if it is showing in Disk management then have you tried just right clicking it then assign a new drive letter then just reformat it to whichever file system you are after. Had the same problem a month back on a flash drive and it worked on that.

tigger

50 posts

Geek

#404196 13-Nov-2010 12:04

Only shows in the box parts of the disk management not in the lines (under volume, layout etc) above so cannot change the letter....

ScottStevensNZ

245 posts

Master Geek

#405253 16-Nov-2010 12:09

Can you supply a screen shot of the disk management window?

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bazzer

3438 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#405267 16-Nov-2010 12:45

tigger: Only shows in the box parts of the disk management not in the lines (under volume, layout etc) above so cannot change the letter....

Can't you right click the box that says "Healthy" or "Unallocated"?

tigger

50 posts

Geek

#405276 16-Nov-2010 13:00

tigger

50 posts

Geek

#405277 16-Nov-2010 13:02

Lost my reply.....thanks for your replies as not sorted this yet.

Sorry to be so ignorant:

Cannot remember how I got to see the devices screen - can you tell me how to get their on Vista please

Also don't know how to do a screen shot.

Thanks for your help

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