hi guys, i bought a second hand hard drive to load all my stuff on as a back up. only thing is, the guy who i bought it off firstly used it on a pc and secondly had a password on it and he cant remember exactly what it was ( i tried a few variations of what he said itcould be)! any way, all i want to do is format it so i can start fresh! is there any way i can do this?????????????? please help me somebody!! 
western digital external hard drive????
May 1, 2007 - 5:59pm
#1
western digital external hard drive????
Plug in the drive to the computer and whatever power it needs. In the Applications then Utilities folder, run Disk Utility. Select the appropriate drive, then erase it. Mac OS X can access PC formatted drives without any problem.
Let us know if this does or does not work.
Mutant_Pie
I hope that Mutant_Pie's suggestion works, but my own experience is not good. One form of protection stores the password on tracks that are not directly accessible through external drive commands; they're only accessible to the controller on the drive itself, and then processed through the drive's own firmware. If that drive has been protected in this way, it is basically a paperweight. I've run into a few of these.
I wish you the best of luck. Do post back with your results.