Mac Formatting On El Capitan PDF
Mac Formatting On El Capitan PDF
Introduction:
Interface Changes:
Some features have moved to new
locations, others have been removed
entirely. One change is that many of the buttons that were once on the toolbar (like Verify, Burn, and New Image) have been
removed. They have been replaced by a mix of the operating mode buttons (First Aid, Partition, and Erase) and the most
common function buttons (Mount/Unmount is now a single, context-sensitive button, and Info).
Additionally when you select a disk or volume, the default view provides key drive statistics and a breakdown of the file types
that are stored on your drive the latter feature serves the same purpose as the storage screen shown for iOS devices when
they are mounted in iTunes, allowing you to see which type of media are taking up the most space on your device (or in
this case, your hard drive or SSD).
Terminology Updates:
The new Disk Utility now refers to the physical drive connected to your computer (internally or externally) as a physical disk,
The OS X volume you create and work with is now referred to as a physical volume even though technically the volume is
a digital or logical entity, not a physical one.
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El Capitan Formatting Guide
STEP 1:
Typically the easiest way to access the Disk
Utility application is to use the Spotlight
search tool built into your OS X Menubar.
STEP 2:
Each physical disk connected to your Mac
appears as an icon in the sidebar on the
left. Similar to prior versions of Disk Utility,
the volumes contained within that disk (i.e.
the partitions you create) will be indented
beneath the physical disks icon.
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El Capitan Formatting Guide
STEP 3:
Unlike prior versions of Disk Utility, if
your physical disk has not already been
formatted for OS X, you cannot add a new
partition until you use the Erase function
to format the drive for the first time.
STEP 4:
First give your new physical volume a name.
It is still recommended that you only use
letters, numbers, dashes, and underscores
in the name. Avoid special characters and
slashes if you can.
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El Capitan Formatting Guide
Step 5:
Once youve clicked the Erase button,
the first sheet will close and a new sheet
with status information will appear in its
place (click Show Details to reveal more
information, as seen at right).
Step 5a:
Note that if Time Machine is active on your
computer when you walk through the
Disk Utility process, a message will appear
when the volume has been created, asking
you if you want to use it as a Time Machine
backup. Unless you set the drive up for that
specific reason, click Dont Use.
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El Capitan Formatting Guide
OPTIONAL - CREATING ADDITIONAL PARTITIONS
Step 6a
If you want to add additional partitions to
your physical disk so that you can store
different types of information in logically
separated volumes (i.e. each with its own
name, etc.), highlight the physical disk icon
again and click the Partition button.
Step 6b:
At first, the pie chart visual will show a
solid blue circle this represents the
volume you just created (as seen above).
The entire physical disk is dedicated to this
one volume for the time being.
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El Capitan Formatting Guide
Step 6c:
Next to the Partition field, change the name
from Untitled to whatever you would like
to use. The same guidelines used in Step 4
apply here as well.
Step 6d:
Now you have to decide whether you
want to leave the existing 50/50 split (of
the disks capacity) as-is, or if you would like
one partition to be larger than the other.
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El Capitan Formatting Guide
Step 7:
Add more partitions if necessary (using the
same process described in Step 6b-6d), or
if not, click Apply.
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