I got my new Seagate Backup Plus today but cannot for the life of me install it. The instruction manual says "For Time Machine, the hard drive must be formatted HFS+ for Mac" but it doesn't tell me how to do that at all. I followed the steps but got nowhere. I set up something called ToolKit but it even failed. So I googled it and the support video shows a screen that has you download a driver to convert it, but I never got that option. I attached all the photos of the steps I went through, along with a video. Any help is greatly appreciated!


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It's a lot easier than that. Forget about any seagate software or other tools. You already have what you need on your computer. It's called "disk utility".

1. Unplug any other external drive other than the one you plan to use for time machine. (Just to be safe that you don't erase the wrong drive.)
2. Open Disk Utility (located in applications/utlities or spotlight search for it).
3. Select the new external drive in the left column of Disk Ultitity.
4. Choose "erase"
5. You should be able to choose either APFS or Mac OS Extended Jounaled.
6. After disk utility has erased the drive, open system preferences




7. In system preferences open "time machine".
8. Choose "select backup disk" then select the drive in the drop down menu.
9. Choose "use disk".
10. You're done.



OR…even easier, just start at step 7. Time Machine software will do it all for you automatically.


Lot's of people get caught up in the drive manufacturer's instructions. Just throw them away.