apt electronics is a big authorized
Apple reseller now we have pretty much
every computer configuration we love to
stock different configurations on app
comm or we could order you whatever
configuration you want a lot of our
customers because we have a lot of Mac
customers they are buying hard drives to
backup their stuff now most hard drives
when you first plug them in will walk
you through some kind of basic setup do
you want to use this for Mac or PC and
you walk through that set up some hard
drives don't have that and you need to
manually kind of use the program called
Disk Utility to really set the drive up
to the way you want it alright so here
we have a Mac running 10.9 10.10 is
currently on the market but this is
going to be pretty similar I'm plugging
a brand new external hard drive into my
USB port now let's see what happens
little delay here but it's going to pop
up in a second there it is so here's a
my external hard drive on my desktop and
I got a message from Apple now my
message is basically asking me do I want
to use time machine which you might want
to so if you get this message with your
brand-new hard drive and your goal is a
complete backup using time machine which
backs up your computer every hour
automatically you're just going to click
users backup and follow the instructions
it might ask you that it needs to erase
the drive if I say uses backup look are
you sure you want to erase it and that's
because this Drive I plugged in is not
formatted for Apple it's actually NTFS
and that's a file format that only may
windows computers can read and write to
a Mac can only read now I'm going to hit
don't erase and I'm going to back up
here and hit cancel I'm going to get out
of here so right now what if I didn't
want to use this as Time Machine backup
what if I just want a nice external hard
drive to manually backup my stuff I'm
going to click on spotlight and type in
di s there it is Disk Utility open up
Disk Utility and now here's the program
that you're really going to utilize to
your benefit now here we go
there's two things here and you got to
be careful because you want to you don't
want to erase or tamper with the wrong
Drive so you'll notice that I have a
color orange with the USB logo on it
that means that we are looking at the
USB connected drive underneath it is the
part
called my passport at the bottom of our
screens you'll notice it's indicating
it's Windows NT file system that's NTFS
and that file system a Mac cannot write
to let's look inside it real quick so
you have some stuff user manuals and
some other stuff that has been provided
by Western Digital if you want you could
drag all that stuff throw it on your
desktop in case you want to keep that
stuff because we're about to erase that
drive all right and by the way let's say
I want to save something to NTFS look I
can't I get a circle with an X kind of -
crossed over it which means I can't save
to NTFS so let's make this Drive work I
simply click the top section which is
referencing the whole Drive not the
partition I click on this I'm going to
click partition now I want one partition
you'll notice you could make many so you
can split this up however way you want
I'm going to say one partition I'm going
to go to options I want to make this
only for my Mac's
the Mac only Drive go with GUI D if
you're going to do a drive that you want
to work with Mac and PC stick with
Master Boot Record so let's say I want
only for Mac I choose GUI D I hit OK I
give it a name up here I'm going to call
it back up and now choose your partition
I would stick with Mac OS extended
journaled this partition is pretty
standard for all new Macs stick with
that it's your best way to go then click
apply I'm not going to do it right now
but if I click apply it would literally
take maybe a minute and next thing you
know this little box will disappear and
it comes back and it's going to say that
we're back up and we're all done and
that's it close the program and move on
but what if you want the drive to work
with Mac or Windows then here you go
here's the new one exFAT exFAT is fully
read and writable on your Windows
machine or your Mac choose exFAT and I
would go back into your options and go
to Master Boot Record and that's it
click apply again it'll take like a
minute not even and then you're good to
go I'll just point out that ms-dos fat
the original fat format that's like a
flash drive but be cautious because fat
cannot accommodate really large files so
if I have a 20 gigabyte file not going
to save on fat X fat can accommodate
pretty much anything same as Mac OS
extended so just to kind of bring
closure I'm going to say X fat I chose
on Master Boot Record so I can freely go
back and forth from Mac to PC and here
it goes
apply partition done right away the
Mac's like hey do you want to use this
new hard drive called backup to activate
time machine I'll decide later but I
could do it now if I want to and then I
going to take all this stuff and I'm
going to put it back inside the backup
copy all that data that came with the
drive and that'll be sitting inside
there now so that's pretty much all you
have to do is that that little disk
utility program to go ahead and format
any of your hard drives so as you can
see it's not that hard to use Disk
Utility which for some does look a
little intimidating but it's pretty
simple to use to go ahead and take any
old hard drive and make sure it works
for Mac exactly how you want AB com not
only has a whole bunch of Apple products
but we've got a lot of computer
accessories check us out and let's hear
some comments when was your last backup