Disk Utility, a free application included with the Mac operating system, is a multipurpose, easy-to-use tool for working with hard drives, SSDs, and disk images. Among other things, Disk Utility can erase, format, repair, and partition hard drives and SSDs, as well as create RAID arrays.

This guide is for the version of Disk Utility found in OS X 10.10 Yosemite and earlier. Disk Utility underwent some changes in the version included with OS X El Capitan and the new macOS version of the operating system. If you need to format a drive using OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) or later, check out Format a Mac's Drive Using Disk Utility (OS X El Capitan or later)

Getting to Know Disk Utility in OS X Yosemite and Earlier

If you want to insure full Mac compatibility of a new external hard drive or flash disk, you’ll want to format the drive to the Mac OS Extended filesystem. This is particularly necessary for purchases of generic PC drives, which almost always come preformatted to be Windows compatible rather than. As long as we format the external hard drive to one of these 2 file systems, it can be shared between Mac and Windows. See the full article on how to quickly format external hard drive for Mac.

Disk Utility works with disks and volumes. The term 'disk' refers to the drive itself. A volume is a formatted section of a disk. Each disk has a minimum of one volume. You can use Disk Utility to create a single volume or multiple volumes on a disk.

It's important to understand the relationship between a disk and its volumes. You can erase a volume without affecting the rest of the disk, but if you erase the disk, then you erase every volume that it contains.

Hard Drive Format Tool For Mac

Disk Utility has three main sections: a toolbar that spans the top of the Disk Utility workspace; a vertical pane on the left that displays disks and volumes; and a work area on the right, where you can perform tasks on a selected disk or volume. Disk Utility is located in Applications > Utilities. Launch it.

If you plan to use Disk Utility for system maintenance purposes as well as for working with hard drives, add it to the Dock. Right-click the Disk Utility icon in the Dock and select Keep in Dock from the pop-up menu.

Erasing a Non-Startup Volume

Erasing a volume is an easy way to free up drive space. Many multimedia applications, such as Adobe Photoshop, need a large amount of contiguous disk space to work. Erasing a volume is a faster way of creating that space than using third-party defragmenting tools. Because this process erases all the data on a volume, many multimedia-savvy individuals create small volumes to hold a project's worth of data and then erase the volume before starting the next project.

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Select a volume format to use. The Volume Format drop-down menu lists the available drive formats that the Mac supports. Select Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

Click Security Options to open a menu that displays multiple secure erase options.

Optionally, select Zero Out Data. This option is for hard drives only and should not be used with SSDs. Zero Out Data performs a test on the hard drive as it writes zeros to the drive's platters. During the test, Disk Utility maps out any bad sections it finds on the drive's platters so they can't be used. You won't be able to store any important data on a questionable section of the hard drive. The erase process can take a fair amount of time, depending on the drive's capacity.

Make your selection and click OK to closethe Security Options menu.

Click the Erase button. Disk Utility will unmount the volume from the desktop, erase it, and then remount it on the desktop.

Erasing or Formatting a Mac's Startup Drive Using Disk Utility

Disk Utility can't directly erase or format a startup disk, because Disk Utility and all of the system functions it uses are located on that disk. If Disk Utility tried to erase the startup disk, it would at some point erase itself, which could present a problem.

To get around this, use Disk Utility from a source other than the startup disk. One option is your OS X Install DVD if you have one, which includes Disk Utility. Macs without optical drives use the Recovery volume.

Insert the OS X Install DVD in your Mac's CD/DVD reader.
Restart the Mac by selecting the Restart option in the Apple menu. When the display goes blank, press and hold the c key on the keyboard.
Booting from the DVD can take time. After you see the grey screen with the Apple logo in the middle, release the c key.
Select Use English for the main language. when this option appears, and then click the arrow button.
Select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
When Disk Utility launches, the drive from the disks and volumes listed at the left side of the Disk Utility window.
Click the Erase tab. The selected drive's name and current format display in the right side of the Disk Utility workspace.
Click Erase. Disk Utility unmounts the drive from the desktop, erases it, and then remounts it on the desktop.

For Macs that do not have an optical drive, you can boot from the Recovery HD to run Disk Utility.

You can then use the steps in the Erase a Non-Startup Volume section.

Quit Disk Utility by selecting Quit Disk Utility from the Disk Utility menu item. This takes you back to the Install OS X window.
Quit the OS X Installer by selecting Quit OS X Installer from the Mac OS X Installer menu item.
Set the startup disk by clicking the Startup Disk button.
Select the disk you want to be the startup disk and then click the Restart button.

'Is it possible to format FAT32 and NTFS drives on Mac by myself?' A user asked us about this question.

Certainly you can format the drives yourself by directly setting in the 'Application' on Mac. Many people think it is hard to format the windows drive on Macintosh. No worry, actually it is not impossible to realize it no matter you use an external or internal drive of your windows system. We here will show you the full guides on how to format FAT32 and NTFS drives on Mac as an example.

Part 1: Format FAT32 Drive on Mac

First, let us look on how to format FAT32 drive on Mac (macOS Sierra). You could be wondering what FAT32 is. It is a file system in Windows 95, 98, and windows Millennium Edition.

External Drive Format For Mac

One major advantage about this file system is that nearly all the operating systems can read and write from it. On the contrary, it just accommodates files less than 4GB. So if you have a drive that you want to format ensure it is smaller size. Nevertheless, if you have a drive that is more than 4GB, you can download software known as Swissknife. After installing it, it will be much easier to format large files.

How to format FAT32 drive on Mac

Step 1. Now here is how to format your FAT32 external drive on Mac. Go finder window on you Mac then click on Applications the image right.

Step 2. From there, you need to open disk utility. Therefore, scroll down until you see a folder Utilities Double click on it.

Step 3. What you have to do is scroll down through the icons until you find an icon labelled Disk Utility again double click on it.

Step 4. When it opens at the centre, it will command you to select a disk, volume, image that you want to format.

Step 5. From there, you need to open disk utility. Therefore, scroll down until you see a folder Utilities Double click on it.

Step 6. Move the cursor to the top left and choose the disk you want to format. To achieve this you h