Mac formatting external HD

[Harvey]

Hey guys, just bought an external hard drive, and the guy at the store told me I should be sure to reformat it for mac before using it. It is a buffallo firewire drive that comes formatted fat32 by default.
How exactly does one go about doing that? I imagine I just plug in the drive, it will show up on y desktop, and I option click properties or something like that and I'll see a format option? Not sure, let me know if anyone has done this before!

See yaz

 

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Connect the drive, then open Disk Utility (in the /Applications/Utilties folder). Click on the device name (not the indented name below the device name), and then click on the "Partition" tab in the main window. Choose a format from the drop down menu (I recommend Mac OS Extended, but the Journaled version will also do fine). Then, click the "Partition" button.

Reply back if you have any trouble!

 

[iZero]

Connect the drive, then open Disk Utility (in the /Applications/Utilties folder). Click on the device name (not the indented name below the device name), and then click on the "Partition" tab in the main window. Choose a format from the drop down menu (I recommend Mac OS Extended, but the Journaled version will also do fine). Then, click the "Partition" button.

Reply back if you have any trouble!

why do you choose extended over journaled?

 

[DeltaMac]

Journalling is an effective drive 'safety' tool, and only affects the booting partition, and has very little significance on other partitions. Journalling is also NOT a special formatting on the volume that must be chosen at the time of format (unlike OS 9 drivers). It is merely a system option that can be turned on or off at any time, even if specifically not added at the initial format.
Turning on Journalling takes away about 8 MB of drive space when in use.