how to format new hard drive

i just purchased a 500gb hard drive for my macbook and im unsure of how to format because the new drive is not going to be formatted in any way so when i install it into the computer it comes up with like a question mark which is understandable but is there a way to get it to boot from CD rom so i can re install snow lepoard onto the new drive

Boot holding down C when you hear the start up chime.
Select language, then go to utilities>disk utilities in the menu bar.
Select the drive, Format as mac os extended (journaled), then quit disk utilities and continue with installation.

6string said:

Boot holding down C when you hear the start up chime.
Select language, then go to utilities>disk utilities in the menu bar.
Select the drive, Format as mac os extended (journaled), then quit disk utilities and continue with installation.

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it will say "hfs+ extended (journaled)" so you don't get confused

the next thing is you need to be really really really sure you format it with proper partition table. if you use the older partition table you can get a bunch of permission errors and such with the newer OSes (like 10.4 and up). You should select GPT and not the other one (sorry I don't have my mac in front of me so I can't check for sure what the name is.. I think it's something like AFP of something)

Guid Partition

6string said:

Guid Partition

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GPT is short for GUID Partition Table (=