How to Format a Hard Drive in OSX Leopard

Male Speaker: In this video, I'll be showing you how to format a hard drive in OS 10 Leopard, specifically snow leopard. When you connect an uninitialized disk to your Mac, a dialogue box will pop up asking you if you would like to initialize. When you click initialize, it opens a program called disk utility. You can alternatively get the disk utility by clicking on the applications folder, going to the utilities folder and clicking on disc utility. Once in disk utility click on the hard drive that you would like to format, and then click on the erase tab. Click on the drop down next to the word format and you'll see several format options. You likely would want to select the first default option OX10 extend journal.

Journal in creates a record of all your actions, which will help to recover the system in the event of a crash. In the name field, choose whatever name you would like for your new disk. When you click on the security options button, you'll be presented with several options for erasing your data.

If you are using the default option of don't erase data, bits of your data remain on your disk and those bites maybe able to recovered by data recovery programs as your out data write 0's of all your data. The seven password rays will write over your data seven times or 35 pass 35 times. If selling your computer a seven pass erase will write over your data seven times at 35 pass in 35 times. To selling you computer a seven pass erase is recommended. Click OK and click erase, click erase again. The new hard drive will appear on your desktop and will be ready for use.


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