External Hard Drive Formatting

Ruttsy1966 Said:

"External Hard Drive Formatting: I am trying to format an OWC External Hard Drive to undertake a backup. I have OSX 10.10.5 and the format application requires 10.12. What should I do?"

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Upgrade to Sierra:

Backup your Mac, and then upgrade to Sierra (macOS 10.12). Get Sierra Here: How to get old versions of macOS - Apple Support

Ruttsy1966 Said:

"External Hard Drive Formatting: When I have tried to get 10.13 High Sierra from the App store I got this message 'This copy of the Install macOS High Sierra.app application is damaged, and can‘t be used to install macOS.'"

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What to Try:

• View the "Helpful" links here: Mac OS sierra app is damaged - Apple Support

• View what is found with this Google Search Queue: "This copy of the Install macOS High Sierra.app application is damaged, and can‘t be used to install macOS." site:discussions.apple.com

Ruttsy1966 Said:

"External Hard Drive Formatting: To back up my Mac don't I need a hard drive? That's what I bought and I cant back up to the external hard drive because I cant format the drive?"

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The concern here is losing data. So, backup to iCloud storage. Elsewise, you'd have to upgrade your macOS, without a backup.

But, you can always just proceed with the upgrade, if you have no concern with losing data.

You can use iCloud as well.

Important:

Backup First: You always want to backup your Mac, prior to making any major changes to it (i.e. upgrading). That way, you can have something to restore your Mac from, shows anything go wrong afterwards.

Ruttsy1966 Said:

"External Hard Drive Formatting: To back up my Mac don't I need a hard drive? That's what I bought and I cant back up to the external hard drive because I cant format the drive?"

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Thanks for the Screenshot:

If there are items on that hard drive, then get a second hard drive, at least 1.5 times the storage, if you plan on making multiple backups from here. Make certain that it is at least macOS 10.10 compatible.

Unless it's a network-attached drive, disregard that requirement and use the Disk Utility to reformat it. If it is, you'll need to use a regular external drive for the initial backup.

(197565)

Yes.

(197569)