How to Format a Hard Drive in OSX Leopard

September 30th, 2009

Today we’ve got a short video for you showing you how to format a hard drive from within Disk Utility in OSX Leopard.

Summary:

First, navigate to Disk Utility in your Applications -> Utilities Folder. Then click on the drive you’d like to format, and click on the erase tab.

Format Options:

You’ll likely want to choose OSX Extended Journaled here. Journaling is where OSX keeps a record (or journal) of all your actions. In the event of a crash, the OS can use this in helping to recover your system.

Name

Choose whatever name you’d like for your new disk. This can be changed at any time.

Security Options:

Don’t Erase Date – This is an insecure method to erase your data. With this option, bits of your data will remain on your hard disk and could be recovered by a Data Recovery program.
Zero Out Data – This option is slightly more secure and will write 0s over all the data on your disk.
7 Pass Erase - This option will write over your data 7 times and is considered extremely secure. If you will be selling your computer, this is the option you would likely want to choose to protect your personal information.
35 Pass Erase – This option is even more secure, possibly just overkill as a 7 pass is considered secure by today’s standards.

Next click Erase, then Erase again. Your new drive is formatted and ready for use.

Tags: hard drive, iPad 2, screen
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