But unfortunately it bit the dust and i decided to get a pc. Formatting an external hard drive will delete any information on the device, likewise reformatting your system will essentially bring your mac back to. How to format an external hard drive the easy way in 2020. Format wd my passport for mac and pc with ms dos fat 32 or exfat file system and share digital files between mac and windows system easily. So if you are formatting a drive that has already been used, be sure to copy any files you will ever want to see again onto a computer or backup drive. In the resulut, your external hard drive will work just fine with mac and windows. To access the disk management tool, click the windows icon and type disk management. Windows cant normally read mac formatted drives, and will offer to erase them instead. A drive can be formatted with exfat using either a windows or a mac computer. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. Today this video will show you how to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. Lets take a look at the different types of formats, and which are best for video production. Keep in mind that this process is different than formatting an external or extra hard drive.
But if you didnt foresee that, you may have formatted your drive with apples hfs plus, which windows cant read by default. I know mac operating system doesnt fully supports ntfs formatted drive. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. To sum up, it is easy to format an external hard drive for both mac and windows pc. Using your toshiba external hard drive to backup to. Moving files from macformatted external hard drive to pc. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another. I have purchased a 1tb portable external seagate hard drive and i would like to use it with both my mac and windows computer. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. If you want to transfer files from a mac to windows pc and vice versa using an external portable hard drive then you have to have the external. You can format your hard drive on both windows and mac computers. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows.
Use a software solution you get a piece of software that sits on your mac. Rightclick on the external hard drive and click format. From all above, you can have a general idea of fat32 and exfat file system. It interprets what is on the external hard drive so that your mac or pc can read and write to the drive. But dont forget to back up your important data in the drive into a safe place before formatting. If you know youre going to use a drive on both mac and windows, you should use the exfat file system, which is compatible with both. How to convert an external hard drive from apple to pc. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac cnet. Make sure your external hard drive is attached and mounted to. Formatted external hard drive without backup and want to recover the data. Just keep in mind if you want to use your drive also for os xs time machine backups, we advise you to format your drive through mac because there is an additional step to make drive compatible. You cannot format the whole hard drive doing so would erase your operating systembut you can format a portion of the hard drive after creating a partition. How to use toshiba external hard drive on mac solved.
Some hard drives may also include drivers, firmware, or format wizards so be sure to check the user manual before formatting the hard drive. This article shows you how to format an external hard drive via different methods, and you can follow these methods to format external hard drive for pc, mac or linux. There will be no space wasted by protected mac partitions. 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. Every major version of the operating system provides a dedicated solution to format hard drive as well as external storage units. Pc youll have to format the drive so that it can be read by the windows operating. Formatting your drive will wipe out all the data in it. It is time to learn how to format your external hard drive or other external drives to a common file system for mac and windows. External hard drive compatible with mac and pc without. The drive will now be formatted for use by windows systems.
Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. 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. But if you try to use an external hard drive thats been formatted for mac os. Understanding hard drive partitioning with disk management. 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. A user has to know how to convert mac formatted hard drive to windows formatted. But if you want the external hard drive to also work on a mac. Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard drive. External hard drive is popular storage device and it can be used to store all kinds of digital information such as images, documents, apps. If you work solely on a mac, but need to send files to someone working on a pc, your external hard drive needs to be set up for both operating systems. Both operating systems use different formats for reading and writing to a. Options for having an external hard drive for mac and pc without formatting.
For instructions on how to format your hard drive on a mac, please reference the following links. Macos extended if you primarily use mac with a secondary exfat partition, or. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. 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. How to share an external drive between a mac and a pc. But somehow, macos doesnt allow you to write data to the drive. This tool allows you to manage the partitions on drives connected to your computer.
How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. The windows system uses a hard drive with a different file system than the mac systems. By default, windows computers will choose ntfs new technology file system for you because thats the native microsoft filing system. Use the exfat file system and never format your external.
Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. 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. However, it is not possible to format hard drive to exfat, the only option under the window of format file system is ntfs default. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. Transferring data from a mac to pc via an external hard drive. While you have bought this drive, you will find the drive already formatted for your mac or windows system. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac apple. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac. How to properly format a new hard drive on windows 10. People might need to format a hard drive or an external hard drive in windows 10 for various reasons. The best way to do it is with a drive formatted as fat32. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Time machine, however, gives you the possibility to create an automatic backup of the data on your hard drive before formatting it. How to format hard drive for mac and pc on windows.
All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your mac. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. So, you just bought a new external hard drive or a portable ssd and wanted to use it on your mac. Thats all because its been initialized with windows nt file system ntfs, which is primarily for pcs. Now either because of time, corruption or because it may have been. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with. This also allows you to restore time machine backups on windows. But using a third party all the time for accessing a hard drive on windows is not good. If it does not you will need to rightclick and delete the volume first.
Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them. How to reformat my external hard drive for windows 10 i have a lacie d2 quadra 1tb external hard drive. From what i understand, windows doesnt always like the way macs 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. How to format seagate drive for mac and pc quickly and. However, naturally, disk utility cant format external hard drive to ntfs. You can format your external hard drive from either the pc or mac. Formatting a disk or volume erases all the files on it. How to format an external hard drive for windows 10.
How to format an external hard drive on windows 10. The below steps for formatting external drive is for windows 10 and also works the same with an old version of windows. Format mac hard drive with time machine formatting an external hard drive with time machine is as easy as formatting it with disk utility. In this guide, well show you how to format an external hard drive so you can not only get rid of the. Both mac os x and windows allow users to format their hard drives using builtin utilities. Sometimes, you may want to try format directly to format your external hard drive partition to exfat for mac and windows. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Mac os x and windows can both read and write to disks in the fat or exfat format.
Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the. Format your external drive with exfat for both mac and. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac.
Windowsformatted hard drives have either ntfs file system of an fat32 file system. Buying an external hard drive is one of the best options for adding the storage space to the mac computer system. Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on mac. 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. You have to set it up correctly before getting starting. Whether you are trying to backup mac to an external hard drive, wipe out any personal information and sell the computer, or even use a new operating system, you need to format the hard drive on your mac or pc. Buying and using an external hd is one thing, getting the most out of it is quite another. If your mac or pc has a windows os installed, then you wont face any trouble managing it. If you have both windows and mac computers in your office, its important to understand their different storage requirements before buying an external hard drive. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step.
Want to format a hard drive for mac and pc compatibility. Some people are asking for a way to format a hard drive for mac. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. To format your external drive hard drive in windows which works with both platforms, first plugin your drive with windows machine. Starting clean how to format new hard drive on windows 10 formatting is an essential task before starting to use a new drive, and in this guide, well show you how to do it on windows 10. How to format external hard drive for pc, mac and linux. Aomei partition assistant is such a great simple tool for formatting external hard drive for mac and 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. How to reformat my external hard drive for windows 10. How to share an external hard drive between macintosh and. In disk utility on your mac, you can format an external disk for a windows computer.
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