How to Format a FireLite External Drive to MAC OS X Extended (Journaled)?

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How to Format a FireLite External Drive to MAC OS X Extended (Journaled)?

*24 December 2009*

*Dear Mac Users:*

Hello. Thanks to AppleMan1958 for answering my question about how to edit an iMovie project
on another computer.

Here is a question related to the process of transferring the iMovie '09 project file from my friend's
computer to an external drive so that I can edit that project in iMovie '09 on my MacBook Pro:

+How do I know if my Smart Disk FireLite portable external drive is formatted to MAC OS X Extended (journaled)? How I do format this Smart Disk FireLite USBFLB80C to MAC OS X Extended (journaled)?When I connect the Smart Disk FireLite to my MacBook Pro via USB, open iMovie '09, and select View Events By Disk or rather "Group Events By Disk," an icon for the FireLite external drive appears, but there is a yellow triangle with a black exclamation mark on the icon for the external drive. What does this "warning" mean? There are MP3s of music on the same external drive and they open just fine in iTunes. The one iMovie project file that is already on the drive will not open up in iMovie.+

+Again, how do I properly format this external drive in order to transfer an iMovie project file from my friend's computer so that I can edit it on my MacBook Pro using iMovie '09?+

Sincerely,

Corey

Message was edited by: excelsus

macbook pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8), iMovie '09

Posted on Dec 24, 2009 12:48 PM

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Answer 1

Al Q

Level 1

124 points

Dec 24, 2009 1:46 PM in response to excelsus

Connect the Firelite external drive to your Mac and run Disk Utility (in Applications/Utilities). Select the Firelite drive in Disk Utility and it will tell you the drive's format.

Chances are that it came from the factory formatted for Windows FAT32, which is as close as exists to a universal format that can be read or written on any Mac or PC. Unfortunately it is also a rather inefficient format, tends to get fragmented, and is not very robust if there are minor drive errors.

You can reformat it to MAC OS X Extended (journaled) in Disk Utility by selecting the Erase tab then select the format you want with the Format pop-up menu. Formatting will erase the drive. If there is anything on it that you want to keep, copy it to another drive before you erase the Firelite.

You should be aware that once you have it in Mac format, it can be used on any recent Mac computer, but cannot be read or written by a PC unless that PC has special Mac drivers installed (such as MacDrive).

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Answer 2

excelsus Author

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Dec 24, 2009 2:50 PM in response to Al Q

*24 December 2009*

*Dear Al Q,*

Hello. Thank you for those directions for formatting my FireLite external drive.

Sincerely,

Corey

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Answer 3

Al Q

Level 1

124 points

Dec 24, 2009 3:18 PM in response to excelsus

If my reply has answered your original question about formatting a drive, please mark the question answered. If you have additional questions it is better to ask them separately so that people looking at the topic list will know what new topic you need help with.

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