New hardrive install

Hi all

The standard hardrive in my mac has died. I have a western digital 360gb hardrive which I have taken out of the casing of a external drive. It serial ata and full compatible with mac and it's even a better drive then the standard mac hardrive my laptop came with. The problem is when I try to format it in disk utility on my mac it won't let me select a file system to format it in the drop down box is locked. I think this might be because I formatted it on my windows system as nfts which a mac can only read. Do I need to put the drive back in my pc and format it as fat32 then put it back in my mac and format it to extended journaled. ?????

Thanks
Regards

Aiden

Did you try running the disk utility from the OSX install disk, after rebooting from the disk?

Yes. I replaced the hardrive with the new one. Put the snow leopard disk in and held c. When I got to the start of the install I went to disk utility. It's can see the hardrive and it's called media but it won't let me format it. The drop down menu won't drop down it's just shaded.

You're not doing it right. Follow below:

You have to select the drive on the left side first (highlight the entry that shows capacity) and then click erase at the top of the screen. Now select the desired format (HFS Extended Journaled). Change the drive's name to MacIntosh HD.

Click erase at the bottom of the screen, then click erase again on the second window. It may take a few minutes. Afterward, you can proceed to install OS X or restore from Time Machine backup.

Let us know.

Cool thx slot will give it a go and let you know

Still not working. I put the hard drive in. Went to disk utility's. Selected the drive on the left. Clicked the erase tab but then the option to choose a format is shaded out. The drop down box won't drop down hard drive was ripped out an external hard drive would this make a difference ? Please help ???

Hi all

My aim is to erase and format a hardrive to work on a mac

I have a WD 360gb SATA drive that i ripped out of a external hardrive. I put the hardrive in my macbook, inserted my snow leopard disk, turned on the power, held down C, and after the option to select language I open disk utility. On the left hand side I can see the hardrive, its called media. I then click on the erase tab but on the right hand side the option where you select the drop down menu and select a format want wont open (journled,case sensitive, fat32 etc) its just shaded, it wont even let me type in a name for the hardrive Before I ripped the drive out of its case it was formatted to work on windows. I really stuck with this one i would really appreciate some help.

regards

aiden

Do not crosspost! Always post back to the same thread - posting in more than one forum causes confusion and creates clutter.

Following on with your thread.....

The drive may be locked or read only. Since it was formatted as NTFS before that may be the problem. Try placing it back in the carrier and use a PC to erase it.