I have an old external 1 tb hard drive id like to format for use with apple time machine backup. Mac os x and windows can both read and write to disks in the fat or exfat format. Select your external hard drive or usb flash drive from the list on the left. Macs use whatever format you tell them to when you format it. Transferring data from a mac to pc via an external hard drive. Data transfer is one of the problems while using mac and windows laptops together. Once disk utility is open youll see the list of available drives on the left. Again, formatting a drive will erase it completely, so make sure you have everything backed up that you want to keep. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. Aweeraser for mac will show all the hard drives and external devices on your mac.
Hard drive format software for mac mac disk format software. Download disk formatting software for mac doyourdata. First, lets see how to format an external hard drive or usb drive in macos which works with both mac and pc platforms, first plugin your drive in macos machine. The videos below demonstrate the complete process of formatting an external hard drive for full mac os x compatibility, this uses the new disk. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac. The volume representing your startup disk is macintosh hd. To format hard drive for mac and windows without data loss, we suggest using minitool partition wizard and its convert ntfs to fats32 function. Format a hard drive using mac os x disk utility iclarified. If you want to format a hard drive or usb flash drive on your computer, disk formatting tool is the best choice. Open the disk management tool by rightclicking this pc manage disk management. How to use same external usb or hard disk with mac and. Mac can read all the file system formats including windows msdos, fat, fat32, exfat, and ntfs, but you cannot write on it. External hard drives enjoy different forms, such as ssd, usb flash drive, sony pen drive and so on, and vary a lot in their capacities from gigabytes to terabytehowever, you may see external usb hard drive not formatted error, saying you need to format the disk before you can use it.
Format external hard disk drive for mac os and windows. How to use disk utility to format a hard drive on a mac. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility. External hard drives use either spinning disks or solid memory to save your files. The drive will now be formatted for use by windows systems. In this video we look at the process of formatting a hard drive, flash drive, or ssd on an apple computer. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. I need to reformated my wd 1tb external hard drive and was wondering what is the best file format to use ms dos fat32, mac os extended journalled etc all i store on it are all my videos, tv shows, and backups of all my work, documents etc, but i dont use it with time machine. How to share an external drive between a mac and a pc. What format does mac use for external hd macrumors forums. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. Format external hard drive with windows builtin tool. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. Whether it is a hard drive or usb or internal drive, mac uses different format support.
How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac by jp zhang updated feb 8, 2020 60 comments so, you just bought a new external hard drive or a portable ssd and wanted to use it on your mac. The problem is that the disk is currently formatted as ntfs and is not readable with time machine. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac.
Get something like paragon ntfs for mac and you can readwrite seamlessly. The best format for your external hard drive the hellotech blog. Short of that, just use fat32 drives and you wont have a problem. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. 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. How to reinstall macos from macos recovery apple support. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. Make sure to select the parent hard disk in the sidebar. 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. Before using an external hard drive on a mac, you should format it using disk utility. Hello folks, have you heard of disk utility well, as the name implies, its your solution for pretty much any driverelated issue. You can select the exfat format when using the disk utility to format the drive. How to format an external drive in os x by shujaa imran posted on jan 2, 2016 dec 29, 2015 in mac most external drives ship in formats that are universally recognised amongst nearly all operating systems fat, im looking at you, but there may be times where you might want to completely wipe a drive andor set it up to be compatible with.
So please back up your important files before you run super eraser for mac to format. 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. Connect the hdd to a mac and format the drive as fat32 and then connect the same mac hdd to windows and convert it to ntfs. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag.
Uses the apfs format and is casesensitive to file and folder names. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. How to recover data from formatted external hard drive on mac. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. How to format a hard drive for mac internal, external or. That said, if you are using both a pc and mac in the workflow, youll need to use a different format. Bonus tip data recovery from formatted hard drive on mac. However, mac and windows use different file formatting systems that will not allow you to save files. However, when you format your hard drive with super eraser for mac, all your data will be permanently lost. Fix you need to format the disk before you can use it. Select the mbr or gpt partition table format and click ok to create a partition table for the disk. Using the mac preferred file system is important otherwise the files will be of no use to you. One hurdle youll face is that, by default, these platforms use different filesystems. How to format wd external drive for mac more less apple footer this site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only.
Choose one of the following apfs formats for mac computers using macos 10. If you want to use a different file system on your usb drive, youll need to format it. Use the wizard to create a partition with the ntfs or fat32 file system. This is a great thing to do when you first purchase a drive or when you are looking to.
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. How to install macos or os x on a new hard drive for your mac. If you are not comfortable with the previous method. Use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. If a wireless network is available, you can choose it from the wifi menu in the menu bar. Also, its useful for removable disks like microsd cards or usb flash drives. As others have said, osx by itself cannot write to ntfs drives. The volume representing your startup disk is macintosh hd, unless. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. The exfat format supports virtually any size hard drive and file, unlike the outdated fat32 format.
Make sure that the sidebar in disk utility shows the name of your startup disk. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Step one if your hard drive is an external drive, connect it to the computer. In this video we look at the process of formatting a hard drive, flash 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. Though there are many ways you can transfer data from windows to mac and vice versa, using usb or hard disk is the easier way. To format external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. Reformatting an external hard drive for use with mac osx is not as. The 4 disk formatting software for mac above can help you easily format hard drive, usb flash drive, memory card, and other storage media under mac os. Connect your external hard drive to your windows 10 pc. However, you cant write or delete files from a mac. As a result, you will need to format the hard drive for mac. Open finder and choose applications utilities disk utility to launch the app on your mac.
You can format external hard drive or other external drives with exfat or fat32 file system for mac and windows, so that both mac and windows computer can read and write it. Then, you can open the software and input the license. So, you cant simply use the same drive with both windows and mac. Best format for an external hard disk apple community.
Most external hard drives hd are sold in a format called ntfs, which is designed to work with windows. How to format a hard drive on mac to work on mac and pc. You can use this and still share fat32 volumes with a pc, but if youll primarily be using the drive with windows, and. If you are trying to format mac external hard drive, you can go over the process step by step. Rightclick in the unallocated space on the initialized disk and select new simple volume. These are instructions on how to format a hard drive using mac os x disk utility. Dont forget to check out all of the hard drives and storage solutions. In this article, we will introduce 5 disk formatting tools for windows and mac to help you securely format hard driveusb flash drive or memory card on a pc or a mac. Select disk utility from the utilities window in macos recovery. Heres how to format a drive if you are planning to use it with a mac. For instructions on how to format your hard drive on a mac, please reference the following links. By default, mac os x will use the guid partition table to format the drive.
Both fat32 and exfat can be used on windows pc and mac. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. This insures that you will have a compatible hard drive with. Then i would suggest you to search for a third party software which directly converts the to ntfs format for windows operating system. Fat 32 is the most compatible disk format which is why its the most widely used on usb thumb drives its compatible with both mac and windows pcs. If you are a personal user, you can try its professional edition. Its a goto shop thatll enable you to check, repair, tweak and backup your hard drives. How to use aweeraser for mac to format a hard drive or device on mac.
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