How to Enable Journaling on a MacBook

You can format the hard drive on your MacBook.

If you are doing work with a MacBook and saving files to the hard drive, format the drive to enable journaling. Journaling is Apple’s feature for protecting the file system from hardware failures and power blackouts. With journaling enabled, the system continuously records each change to the disk in incremental steps. This enables the system to restore the MacBook’s hard drive to its last state more quickly after a power failure or crash, because it can check the current state against the record kept through journaling.

Things You'll Need

• Apple OS X Install DVD

Instructions

1. Back up any files on the MacBook’s hard drive that you want to keep. Formatting a drive to enable journaling will erase all data.

2. Insert an Apple OS X Install DVD into the optical drive of your MacBook.

3. Double-click “Install Mac OS X,” then click “Utilities,” and then click “Restart.” The MacBook reboots and starts up from the Apple OS X Install DVD. The Disk Utility window appears.

4. Click the icon of your MacBook’s hard drive to select it.

5. Click the “Erase” tab.

6. Click the “Format” drop-down menu, and then click “Mac OS X Extended (Journaled).”

7. Click the “Erase” button. A message appears, asking you to confirm that you want to erase and format the drive. Click “Erase” to confirm. The MacBook’s drive reformats with journaling enabled.

8. Double-click the “Install Mac OS X” button in the installer window. Click the icon of your MacBook’s hard drive to select it. Click “Install” to install the Mac OS X operating system on your MacBook’s reformatted hard drive. Click “Restart” to restart the MacBook from the hard drive.

References

• Apple: Mac OS X: About File System Journaling
• Apple: Mac OS X 10.6 Help: Erasing a Disk
• Apple: Installing Snow Leopard

Resources

• Apple: Support