

Type in Macintosh HD as a name for the reformatted disk and choose a format. If the Security Options button is not available, Disk Utility cannot perform a secure erase on the storage device. Select Macintosh HD, or whatever your boot drive is called, from the list in the sidebar. Secure erase options are available only for some types of storage devices. (Optional) If available, click Security Options, use the slider to choose how many times to write over the erased data, then click OK.

Step 1: Connect the USB drive or external drive to Mac and launch the Disk Utility from Applications. There is only one rule that you need to keep in mind when reformatting a drive. If the Scheme pop-up menu isn’t available, make sure you selected the storage device you want to erase-it’s at the top of the hierarchy.Ĭlick the Format pop-up menu, then choose a file system format. Before you erase a disk, make sure that you have a backup of the files you want to keep. Answer (1 of 7): Q: How hard is it to reformat the hard drive on a Mac computer A: It’s very easy. Ĭlick the Scheme pop-up menu, then choose GUID Partition Map. But you can’t backup to an APFS drive using Time Machine (even if the external drive is an SSD drive). Somehow I was lead to believe that a 2009 Mini would run High Sierra so I formatted the new drive as APFS and installed 10.13.1 (using an external USB enclosure and my MacBook Pro), put it in the Mini and tried to start the up system.
#Reformat mac hd to apfs and external hardrive mac os#
In the sidebar, select the storage device you want to erase, then click the Erase button. Mac OS Extended, also known as HFS Plus or HFS+, is the file system that was used on all Macs from 1998 until the last couple of years.APFS is the new file system for OSX and it works well for an SSD drive. The hard drive failed (won't even spin up) so I bought another.

If you want to erase any other type of storage device: Double-click Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities folder. Note: If you want to get your Mac ready to trade in, sell, or give away, and your computer is a Mac with Apple silicon or an Intel-based Mac with an Apple T2 Security Chip, use Erase Assistant.
