How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. Click the file menu and select load file system from device. To format a hard drive for windows, open the file explorer and click on this pc. But using a third party all the time for accessing a hard drive on windows is not good. Rightclick on it and select the format option from the context menu. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Also you can enter a name for the drive under volume label.
In disk utility on your mac, you can format an external disk for a windows computer. Well show you everything you need to know about the. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. 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. It will automatically locate the connected drive, and you can load it. I hope you have retrieved all your lost data due to reformatting the external drive. 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. To put in simple words, if you want to share the external hard drive between macintosh and windows pc, you need to format an external hard drive for the respective system. The reason is perhaps that seagate external hard drive has been well known for a long time as one of the most reliable drives for storing data. However, if you need to use the drive beyond the confines of the modern windows ecosystem, its better to go with exfat instead. Format external hard drive with windows builtin tool. Some hard drives may also include drivers, firmware, or format wizards so be sure to check the user manual before formatting the hard drive. If you want to format your external hard drive to work with mac and windows computers, you should use exfat.
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. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Step 2 on the left side of the utilities screen, find the name of the external hard drive you want to format and select it. Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard drive. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and. How to share an external drive between a mac and a pc. You may also set a direct connection to your computer. This is due to the fact that ntfs, the file system utilized by windows pcs, has limited support on mac. To sum up, it is easy to format an external hard drive for both mac and windows pc.
Depending on a number of factors, however, your drive may be labeled not initialized. Make sure you select the disk icon right under external. 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. In the value label field, type a descriptive name for the drive. Apr 30, 2020 to format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your mac.
Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system part 3. Using it, you can erase a hard drive, create new partitions, and even repair your disk as well. However, this format doesnt support larger files, which can be problematic for transferring 4k videos and so on between macs and windows 10. Rightclick on the drive you want to format, click on format. From what i understand, windows doesnt always like the way mac s do the formatting on some larger drives, though, so give it a try and if your windows machines dont like it, just format the drive with windows. The easiest way to do that is hit cmd and the spacebar at the same time and type in disk utility to find the program. Change the partition layout from current to 1 partition. The operating system has an inbuilt tool, which is known as disk utility. If you already have a drive thats formatted in fat, you can still convert it without losing data. On mac computers, use the finder app to browse and manage files on your computer and external hard drives.
Under file system box, select exfat for this drive. So if your external hard drive already has important files on it, make sure to back them up before proceeding. Aug 22, 2019 just like windows, macos also gives us a seamless option to format hard drive for mac and pc. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. A lot of people including you, storing important data on seagate external hard drive instead of on your pc mac hard drive. Rightclick on the external hard drive and click format. How to use mac formatted external hard drive on windows. In windows just right click on the drive and select format.
Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac apple. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. Select disk utility, and then choose the drive to format. 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. Thus, when you are planning to use the same hard drive on any other os, particularly macos, it is always suggested to format your hard drive for mac. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac. Bonus tip data recovery from formatted hard drive on mac. But compared with formatting, an ntfs for mac driver like iboysoft ntfs for mac is a better and feasible solution.
Feb 08, 2020 so, you just bought an external hard drive or a portable ssd and wanted to use it on your mac. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. To do this, you will need to use either exfat or fat32 formats. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac cnet. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. External hard drive compatible with mac and pc without. How to format external hard drive for pc, mac and linux. How to format a hard drive to work on mac and pc youtube. But somehow, macos doesnt allow you to write data to the drive. Before starting the formatting hard drive in mac, you have to connect your mac system to external hard drive. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. However, ntfs is not fully compatible with mac computers. But unfortunately it bit the dust and i decided to get a pc.
Seagate backup plus slim, especially for largecapacity removable storage devices. The best way to do it is with a drive formatted as fat32. Formatting your toshiba hard drive for mac is important, as it makes the hard drive best suitable for the mac by formatting it. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Either way there is a solution to having an existing external hard drive for mac and pc. Instead, save them to your mac hard drive first, then transfer them back to your external drive later. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. Formatting a disk or volume erases all the files on it. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. Typically, when you buy an external hard drive it will be formatted out of the box. But if you want the external hard drive to also work on a mac. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. A user has to know how to convert mac formatted hard drive to windows formatted.
Formatting your drive will erase all the existing files on it. Rather than use a mac formatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exfat formatted drives for moving data between macs and pcs. This will allow you to use the hard drive on both a mac and pc. Connect your external hard drive to your windows 10 pc. Both mac os x and windows allow users to format their hard drives using builtin utilities. If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdos is the formatting option for pc. Apple mac machines support a different file system. May 21, 2018 in this video tutorial, i show you how to easily format an external hard drive to work on both a mac and a pc. Mac os x and windows can both read and write to disks in the fat or exfat format. Please keep in mind that reformatting will result in the loss of. If the hard drive you want to format is connected to your pc, it should be there. Looking to share an external hard drive between a mac and pc.
A drive can be formatted with exfat using either a windows or a mac computer. 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. 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 an external hard drive for windows 10. To access the disk management tool, click the windows icon and type disk management. Format your western digital my passport external hard drive to fat32 or exfat format so to transfer the data between a mac and windows system conveniently. In the disk management, youll see your external hard drive. If it does not you will need to rightclick and delete the volume first. Now either because of time, corruption or because it may have been formatted for a mac when i plug it into my pc i cant access it. 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.
Make sure your external hard drive is attached and mounted to. Before a hard drive can read or write data, it must first be formatted. Most external hard drives hd are sold in a format called ntfs, which is designed to work with windows. 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. 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. It seems they formatted the drive to the mac format, but i have no way to access the data, at least i think. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. How to format an external hard drive on windows 10. Connect your external hard drive to a windows computer. Because mac os x mountain lion does not natively support writing to an external ntfs drive, you must erase your hard disk and format it using a compatible file system.
Moving files from macformatted external hard drive to pc. Oct 22, 2018 formatting a hard disk drive hdd in an external hard drive enclosure is done the same way like an internal drive. Use the file system dropdown menu, and select ntfs recommended. Step 1 connect the external hard drive you want to format to your mac, then start the disk utility app that you can find under applications utilities. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. People might need to format a hard drive or an external hard drive in windows 10 for various reasons. Turn on your macintosh notebook computer or desktop system and login. How to reformat my external hard drive for windows 10. If you run into the issue of not having enough space format it to be the ex fat as. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. If you have already written any data to the drive, back it up before proceeding to the next step. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods revealed. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them.
Open disk utility go to the applications folder and then to another folder, known as utilities. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. In the main interface, right click the partition on that need. 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 toshiba harddrive for mac apple community. Convert formatted drive from mac to windows info remo. How to format an external hard drive the easy way in 2020. If you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between mac and pc is an often difficult but it doesnt need to be. Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility. Keep in mind that you can only format storage devices that are currently not in use.
Mar 31, 2020 if you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between mac and pc is an often difficult but it doesnt need to be. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. Click on the hard drive that needs formatting find the option erase in top center and then click on it format you can prefer mac os extended or apfs file system scheme find guid partition map and hit the button erase. How to repair corrupted external hard drive without losing. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. Typically, an external hard drive that works on a windows pc uses an ntfs file system. Rightclick the new hard drive and select the format option.
If you select the one below it, the partition option will be greyed out and become unclickable. The faster ssd drives on a mac may well use an apfs file system. Sep 17, 2015 i have a lacie d2 quadra 1tb external hard drive. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar. While you can read files from these drives just fine, if you need to write to a pc formatted hard drive, youll need some thirdparty software to get the job done. There are specific thirdparty systems, like digital camcorders, and sony playstation 3, which need the drives to be formatted in either fat32 or exfat format to perform read from and. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. Fat32 is often used among general users, but fat32 has limitations that can affect filmmakers. I hope you enjoyed my article on how to make an external hard drive compatible with mac and pc without reformatting. Your backup plus desktop is formatted as ntfs for compatibility with windows out of the box. If you want your hard drive to be compatible with both mac and pc, you should format the hard drive to the file system that is supported by both of.
Transferring data from a mac to pc via an external hard drive. Use the wizard to create a partition with the ntfs or fat32 file system. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Whether you go the software or hardware route depends on your situation. Launch recoverit data recovery and follow the next steps to perform external hard drive data recovery on windows computer, if you are a mac user, you can download recoverit data recovery for mac to go on step 1. Open the disk management tool by rightclicking this pc manage disk management. How to format new hard drive on windows 10 windows central. Rightclick in the unallocated space on the initialized disk and select new simple volume. By default, windows computers will choose ntfs new technology file system for you because thats the native microsoft filing system. There will be no space wasted by protected mac partitions. 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. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x.
How to share an external hard drive between macintosh and. Both fat32 and exfat can be used on windows pc and mac. Format your external drive with exfat for both mac and. Simply connect the external drive via thunderbolt, usb, firewire or esata to your computer, turn on the power and then use the native disk utility of the operating system or a 3rd party program. How to recover data from a formatted external hard drive. To format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format.
If your external hard drive is working, your computer will. Jan 23, 2020 i hope you enjoyed my article on how to make an external hard drive compatible with mac and pc without reformatting. To format a hard drive on your mac, follow these instructions. Select the external hard drive on the lefthand side. Thats all because its been initialized with windows nt file system ntfs, which is primarily for pcs. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Feb 21, 2012 the drive should automatically mount on your mac s desktop if the finder preferences are set to show external drives. How to format a hard drive on windows or mac avast. You do not want to format the drive though for mac. Formatting your drive will wipe out all the data in it.
Connect your external hard drive to the computer, select it while. Dec 22, 2019 how to format external hard drive mac. Therfore, you can connect backup plus desktop to a windows pc without formatting the hard drive. The drive will now be formatted for use by windows systems. Sep 26, 2018 windows pc and mac use different filesystems. On the formatting window, select quick format option, choose file system format, and click start. How to format an external hard drive on windows formatting a hard drive on windows is a simple affair, especially if you leave everything as default. Mar 15, 2018 to use hfsexplorer, connect your macformatted drive to your windows pc and launch hfsexplorer. External hard drives use either spinning disks or solid memory to save your files. System prompts formatting removes all data and asks confirmation for the action. Continue below to format an external hard drive or learn more about disk management. However, fat32 has a maximum 4gb file size limit whereas exfat can work with. If the drive is not formatted, you may get a message saying that the drive. Windows formatted hard drives have either ntfs file system of an fat32 file system.
How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. Steps on how to recover data from external hard drive download and install recoverit data recovery on your computer. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. I can find it under device manager and disk management but thats it. But to get a hard drive to be compatible with both mac and pc, you have to choose the. Choose the exfat file system in the list and click start.
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