Help a Newbie

[mel]

In an aside, a rep at Apple told me that if my external drive was formatted using FAT 32, it would corrupt all my files. She suggested I use Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Of course, I can't just erase the drive, because there's stuff on it that's not on my computer hard drive (mostly iMovies I made). So I bought a Maxtor One Touch 4plus 500 GB. Can someone please talk me through the steps to format it for OS Extended (Journaled)? Will I be able to move everything on the first external drive to the second even though my internal hard drive is only 80GB?
Is there any potential pitfalls I haven't foreseen?

Thanks in advance for your advice,

Mel

[dnanian]

Here's what to do:

* Start Disk Utility
* Select the external drive hardware in the sidebar
* Click the Partition tab
* Use Disk Utility's controls to divide the drive as needed, even as a single large partition. Use "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" as the format type and name appropriately
* Click Options
* Choose the proper partition scheme (GUID for Intel macs) and accept the page
* Click Partition.

You'll want to partition the drive into two (minimum) partitions, one that's 80GB for your Internal, the other whatever size you want for your 'archived' files. You can then use Finder to move them across.

[mel]

Thank you very much for your help.

Mel