To format a hard drive before you start using it in Windows, use the Disk Management utility; on a Mac, use Disk Utility.

How do I format a hard drive? A computer hard drive stores your files, allowing you to access them at any time. The majority of the time, you want these files to remain stored properly and safely.

Reader Gene Dybinski would like to lend his mother a hand. He writes: Last March I bought a new Power Mac G5, and almost immediately saw an article (on either this site or in the magazine) on how to ...