If you just built a PC, or added a brand new hard drive or SSD to an existing computer, you have to format it before you can actually store data on it. This is called 'initializing' the drive.

How to Format an OS X Terminal Hard Disk. Mac OS X Mountain Lion gives users several ways to access the Terminal and three common options for formatting a hard drive.

While the Mac can use a hard drive formatted for Windows, some features may be limited. So it's a good idea to format a new hard drive specifically for macOS.

How to Format a Disk to HFS Without a Mac. Hierarchical File System Plus, also known as Mac OS Extended, is the primary file system format used in Mac computers. Windows, on the other hand, runs ...