How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. While you have bought this drive, you will find the drive already formatted for your mac or windows system. Make sure your external hard drive is attached and mounted to. How to format a new or second hard drive on mac mac is obviously a very much different operating system from windows, let alone their features and steps to format a hard drive. To format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac cnet. Just follow these steps to format and erase your hard drives on mac. Rather than use a mac formatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exfatformatted drives for moving data between macs and pcs. Both mac os x and windows allow users to format their hard drives using builtin utilities. How to format a hard drive on mac to work on mac and pc. Dec 22, 2019 how to format external hard drive mac. Most accessory manufacturers tend to build accessories for the more dominant platforms, which is why many computer peripherals tend to be more focused on. The instructions below are for windows 10, but other versions of windows from windows 7 and up can also format an external drive as exfat for use with mac as well. Both fat32 and exfat can be used on windows pc and mac.
Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard drive. If the external hard drive is pre formatted for mac, disk management will list 3 partitions and you will not be able to delete the health efi system partition because its a protected partition. How to format a hard drive using the command prompt toms. If you want to format your external hard drive to work with mac and windows computers, you should use exfat. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac youtube. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. It is a quick way to format external hard drive on mac. Neither mac os nor windows recognize each others volume formats. In disk utility on your mac, you can format an external disk for a windows computer. Open disk management, the hard drive manager included with all versions of windows.
How to format new or second hard drive on windows 10mac. Aug 30, 2019 plug in the external hard drive into the system and open windows explorer by clicking on the computer section in the side bar, you will see your external hard drive get attached to your system. In the main interface, right click the partition on that need. Change the partition layout from current to 1 partition. The instructions below are for windows 10, but other versions of windows from windows 7 and up can also format an external drive as exfat for use with mac as. Partition hard drive for mac and windows, in 6 easy steps. Just like windows, macos also gives us a seamless option to format hard drive for mac and pc. File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple. Macs may also create a protected efi partition on these drives that you cant delete with the usual diskpartitioning tools.
Mar 15, 2018 rather than use a macformatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exfatformatted drives for moving data between macs and pcs. Jan 17, 2019 rightclick the new hard drive and select the format option. Follow these easy steps to format a hard drive in windows 10, windows 8, windows 7, windows vista, or windows xp. The best format for your external hard drive the hellotech blog. Buying an external hard drive is one of the best options for adding the storage space to the mac computer system. How to format new hard drive on windows 10 windows central. If you wish to boot the drive on a pc or use it with older versions of windows, you may also need to set the partition scheme to master boot record mbr for full windows compatibility.
Rightclick the new hard drive and select the format option. How to format a hard drive on windows or mac avast. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. If it does not you will need to rightclick and delete the volume first. Formatting an internal or external drive under windows 7 or windows 10. Thus, having an external hard drive will help you to save your files. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac apple. External data storage devices such as usb flash drives, external hard disk drives hdds, and solid state drives ssds provide one of the easiest ways to transfer files between separate computers without accessing the. Download paragon partition manager free if you have not already, then install the software. It just securely formats your mac hard drivedevice and permanently erases all the data. Yes, connecting an external hard drive or usb flash key to a mac will generally read and work fine as is because the mac can easily read other filesystem formats, including windows msdos, fat, fat32, exfat, and ntfs formats, but unless you intend on using the drive between a windows and mac machine, formatting it to be entirely mac compatible.
The below steps can be used to format mac internal hard drives, external hard drives or usb flash drives. Both windows and mac os offer builtin disk formatting tool. The best partition scheme for a drive that will be used for both mac and windows is to format it exfat, and its actually easier to do it in windows than on the mac side. How to partition an external hard drive for mac and windows. How to format toshiba harddrive for mac apple community. For that, you might buy a new external hard drive and you connected with your mac computer or windows pc. Now that you know which format to use, check out our guide on how to format your hard drive on. This wikihow teaches you how to change an external usb hard drives format on windows and mac computers. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. The other formats microsofts ntfs both mac os x and windows allow users to format their hard drives using builtin utilities. Can a windows computer read a macformatted hard drive. You can format an external hard drive or thumb drive to work seamlessly with both mac and windows by using the exfat file system. Plug in the external hard drive into the system and open windows explorer by clicking on the computer section in the side bar, you will see your external hard drive get attached to your system.
Now in this interface, you will see a format option. You can select the exfat format when using the disk utility to format the drive. The two solutions above can help you format external hard drive on windows or mac. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. In the sidebar, select the disk you want to format to use with. Windows can read and write to ntfsformatted drives. External hard drive compatible with mac and pc without.
Choose the exfat file system in the list and click start. Dec 29, 2015 the instructions below are for windows 10, but other versions of windows from windows 7 and up can also format an external drive as exfat for use with mac as well. But compared with formatting, an ntfs for mac driver like iboysoft ntfs for mac is a better and feasible solution. Uses the mac format journaled hfs plus to protect the integrity of the hierarchical file system. I hope you enjoyed my article on how to make an external hard drive compatible with mac and pc without reformatting. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility. If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. The exfat format supports virtually any size hard drive and file, unlike the outdated fat32 format. Therefore, it is necessary to present a tutorial guide here to format or partition a hard drive within mac os. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. Whether you go the software or hardware route depends on your situation. Your faithful mac creates the partitions on your external hard drive.
How to format external hard drive on a mac latest version. May 29, 2018 to format external drive to file system compatible with mac and pc, connect the drive to your computer and follow the detailed steps given below take formatting hard drive to exfat in windows 7 for example. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. In windows just right click on the drive and select format. Either way there is a solution to having an existing external hard drive for mac and pc. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods revealed. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. While the program loads, it will scan the disks attached to the system and present a list. Aug 22, 2019 just like windows, macos also gives us a seamless option to format hard drive for mac and pc. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. The formatted files erased by disk utility also can be recovered by free mac data recovery software. How to format internal andor external drive to work properly on mac and windows computers. Easily format external hard drive on windows or mac.
Use the file system dropdown menu, and select ntfs recommended. In this video i help you guys convert your mac only external hdd into a windows compatible one. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. Want to know how to format a hard drive keep reading to bring a hard drive in your use for storage in windows a hard drive needs to be format first. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdos is the formatting option for pc. Please keep in mind that reformatting will result in the loss of all the data on the hard drive so make sure you back up your data elsewhere before starting. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. However, the new external hard drive comes as formatted drive, but, if you think the external drive should be formatted as another format filesystem. Apr 30, 2020 to format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. Then your hard drivemac computerdevice is able to reuse, resold, recycled or can be safely donated or lent to other people. Choose one of the following mac os extended file system formats for compatibility with mac computers using macos 10.
This file system is specifically for mac systems and windows cant read this file system. Opening disk management can be done a number of ways depending on your version of windows, but the easiest method is to type diskmgmt. Sep 26, 2018 windows pc and mac use different filesystems. Now you will need to select the disk you wish to format. Rather than use a macformatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exfatformatted drives for moving data between macs and pcs. For this reason, a macformatted hard drive is not directly compatible, nor. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. What disk utility looks like in lion through yosemite. If you havent formatted a drive before on windows or mac, you have come to the right place to learn.
In the disk utility app on your mac, choose view show all devices. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar. Hard drive format software for mac mac disk format software. With exfat, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years.
How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. Heres how to format a drive using a mac including how to format a drive for windows and mac so the contents can be read on both platforms, and what format to use for time machine. There are a number of tools that can help you in this regard. Save any files you need to another volume before formatting. Mar 31, 2020 how to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. If you dont see this option, try typing create and format hard disk partitions into start. However, you have to reformat the drive to make it functional with your mac computer. For instance, users want to write data to and read data from, to do a clean installation of the windows system, to get rid of a virus or malware, to erase the data before giving the drive to someone else or throwing it away, or some other reasons. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. File systems compatible with windows include fat32 and ntfs.
The system tells you what key to press during the restart, so pay attention to your screen and be quick at pressing the right key. Mar 29, 2019 you can format an external hard drive or thumb drive to work seamlessly with both mac and windows by using the exfat file system. Formatting a disk or volume erases all the files on it. Formatting a hard drive means to delete any existing information on the drive and make up a file system for the drive so that the operating system can write data on the drive and read data from the drive. For windows, it offers quick format feature when you rightclick the hard drive on the computer.
You do not want to format the drive though for mac. So, if you want to use an external hard drive on both windows and mac, you need to format it to a filesystem that is compatible with windows pc and mac. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. You can then rightclick in the empty space and select new simple volume to create a partition and format it with the windows ntfs or fat32 file systems. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop. You cant format the hard disk on which windows is stored while windows is running, for the same reasons that you cant work on a cars engine while you. But before we jump straight in, there are some things you need to have in place before you begin. How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. Using it, you can erase a hard drive, create new partitions, and even repair your disk as well. Plug your hd into the mac and open disk utility, which can be accessed by searching for it in spotlight. The operating system has an inbuilt tool, which is known as disk utility.
To share a usb drive between a mac and a windows pc, there are two disk formats to choose from. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Click your hard drives name in the window near the bottom of the screen. Convert formatted drive from mac to windows info remo.
Disk utility is a smart hard drive format tool built in mac system. In the value label field, type a descriptive name for the drive. Format hard drive on windows 7 or earlier versions step 1 restart your computer and press f8 or del key to enter the bios settings. For a windows computer to be able to read a hard drive, it needs to have a file system format that is compatible with windows. Step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on mac. To format the primary drive the hard disk where the operating system resides you need to boot into the setup program on windows 7 or windows 10 and use it to format your drive. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Then proceed to highlight your computers hard drive. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac.
Oct 16, 2019 the best format for external hard drives. Format external hard disk drive for mac os and windows using. External data storage devices such as usb flash drives, external hard disk drives hdds, and solid state drives ssds provide one of the easiest ways to transfer files between separate computers without accessing the internet. To format external drive to file system compatible with mac and pc, connect the drive to your computer and follow the detailed steps given below take formatting hard drive to exfat in windows 7 for example. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. To sum up, it is easy to format an external hard drive for both mac and windows pc. If you are using a mac, you can run the builtin disk utility to quickly format a hard drive or external hard. People might need to format a hard drive or an external hard drive in windows 10 for various reasons. Securely format external hard drive on windows and mac with super eraser. Select the external hard drive on the lefthand side.
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