Yo just got a new external hard drive and want to use it on your Mac. However, the Mac OS does not allow you to write data to the drive. You may wonder how to reformat an external hard drive on Mac. Follow the tutorial below, you'll get everything covered.
- Pc Format External Hard Drive For Mac
- How To Format External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc Using
- Format External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc Without Losing Data
Attach the drive you wish to format for dual compatibility to the Mac Click the drive name on the left side list in Disk Utility, and then click the Erase tab Then click the pulldown menu alongside Format and select MS-DOS (FAT) Give the drive a name (optional) and click the Erase button to format the drive. To format a Western Digital My Passport external hard drive in ex-FAT or FAT32 format, you can bank on built-in applications of Mac & PC. However, while doing this, there are things you have to keep in mind and follow the correct steps.
How to Format a Hard Drive for Mac. Note: If you already used your external hard drive on a PC, be sure to back up any files on it. Formatting your drive will wipe out all the data in it. Connect an external hard drive to your Mac. Some external hard drives need to be plugged into an outlet to work. Formatting a drive on Windows is quite simple. Plug in your external HDD to the USB port of your computer then go to my computer find your external drive right-click it and select format. A new window will open, select the desired file system, keep the allocation unit size to default and check mark quick format (or it will take more time.
Bonus: How to Recover Data from Formatted External Hard Drive on Mac
Reformatting an external hard drive for use with Mac OSX is not as difficult as it might seem. In a few simple steps you are ready to go and can save your back-up files to the external drive, keeping your information safe and giving you peace of mind. Keep in mind that a MAC can generally read other file formats, but for the best performance and to create a bootable disk, formatting exclusively for MAC is required.
Part 1: Which File Format You Should Choose?
Before you begin formatting the drive, there are a few things to do. The most important, you should decide which format to use.
There are a few file formats you can use, but it depends on the purpose you want to use the drive for. Which one is right for your circumstance? We'll describe them here, you'll know your choice after reading the details.
APFS: This is the default file system in Macs with High Sierra. It is efficient and reliable. However, it won't be readable and usable on machines that are not running Mac High Sierra, and Windows or Linux PCs. What's more, it is compatible with SSD and flash storage devices only.
Mac OS Extended (Journaled/HFS+): If you didn't update your Mac OS to High Sierra, the default file system on your Mac shoule be Mac OS Extended. Mac OS Extended (encrypted) would be an ideal option if you probably carry your laptop or external drive here and there. You can encrypt it so that no one can access the contents on your drive.
MS-DOS FAT (aka FAT32): In addition to Mac, it can also be written and read by Linux and Windows. It enables you to regularly share files with your friends who own a PC. Nevertheless, this older file system is limited to no more than 4GB and there might be security issue and disk errors.
ExFAT: It is similar to ExFAT which can be read by both Windows and Mac, but it can store more than 4GB files.
NTFS: As the default file system in Windows, it can only read by Mac OS, writing to it is not available. Luckily, there are third-party tools to help you do so.
Part 2: Format External Hard Drive for Mac with Disk Utility
Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another.
All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your Mac. Disk utility - the MacOS utility application can help you with this. Just follow these steps below:
Step 1. Connect the external drive or the USB drive to the MAC.
Step 2. Start the Disk Utility, located under Applications > Utilities.
Step 3. Find the name of the drive in the left side of the Utilities window and select it. And click Erase button.
Step 4. Follow on-screen prompts to choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system and allow the disk to format.
Bonus: How to Recover Data from Formatted External Hard Drive on Mac
In case you forgot to backup files before formatting the external drive. Here comes the cure - iMyFone AnyRecover - a one-stop solution to recover deleted, lost or formatted files from Mac.
Follow these simple steps using AnyRecover to get your files back!
Pc Format External Hard Drive For Mac
Get Ready!
First, download and install AnyRecover, following on-screen prompts to accomplish the task.
AnyRecover 20% off Coupon Code: ANY-ART-D20
Don't miss the opportunity to get AnyRecover license at the lowest price on the market. Don't know how to apply it, check the instructions here:
Get Set!
1. After loading AnyRecover, plug your external hard drive into your Mac directly or via USB.
Thanksgiving challengemr. mac's 6th grade school supply. The First Thanksgiving Teaching Guide: Grades 6–8. Through these lesson plans and The First Thanksgiving online activity, students will explore the relationship between the Pilgrims and Wampanoag, including their experiences, actions, and decisions relating to the settlement of Plimoth colony.
2. Next select the drive under 'External Removable Devices' tab, click 'Start' to begin scanning lost files on the drive.
Go!
1. AnyRecover takes a moment to scan your drive. Once done, it will list out all scanning results by file type.
2. Double click a single file to preview it before recovery.
3. Select the files and press Recover to get them back.
What If?
What if my files were not found? Fear not. We can take this a step further. Enable 'Deep Scan' to try one more time, follow the steps above just as before to locate and recover your files.
It is plain to see that AnyRecover for Mac is a tool worthy of top shelf treatment in your arsenal of items that are used to defend, recover and keep your system up and running. Don't get caught without the file you need for that meeting or stumbling looking for baby photos that were stored on disk and suddenly 'hid' from your view. Allow AnyRecover to find and recover your lost files. AnyRecover is easy to use but provides sophisticated results that mean you know what you're doing!
Make your hard disk or USB flash drive compatible to both Mac and Windows PCs using this easy step by step guide.
The irony is that, by default, Windows and Mac use different file systems. While Windows uses NTFS file system, Mac hard drives are formatted with HFS file system. And they are incompatible with each other! Now, the question is how to make hard drive compatible with Mac and PCs?
Well, you can format the drive and make it as excellent cross-platform compatible to work with both Windows and Mac. This is not a difficult task at all. And if you are going to use Mac and Windows PC frequently, you will find this as very useful as any data, files, media files stored on the drive can be easily accessible from any operating system. It is just a matter of few minutes to do this. In this article, we are going to introduce you with the entire process in few simple guidelines.
How to Format a Drive for Mac and Windows PC Compatibility?
You can format any hard drive, flash drive, SSD, USB drive, that is accepted by both a Mac and Windows machine. And it is recommended to carry out the entire process on Mac OS X
- Open Disk Utility
- Attach the drive you wish to format for dual compatibility to the Mac
- Click the drive name on the left side list in Disk Utility, and then click the Erase tab
- Then click the pulldown menu alongside Format and select MS-DOS (FAT)
- Give the drive a name(optional) and click the Erase button to format the drive
When you want to use your drive with older versions of Windows, you may also need to set the partition scheme to Master Boot Record (MBR) for full Windows compatibility:
- Click the drive, then select Partition tab
- From the Partition Layout dropdown menu, select 1 Partition
- Click Options and choose Master Boot Record as the partition type, then click OK and Apply
“Drives format very quickly, though the total time taken will depend on the size of the drive. Remember, formatting a drive erases all data contained on it so back up important files before proceeding. In the event of not having backups, then you can recover formatted external hard drive data using a reliable Mac Hard drive recovery software. Remo Recover for Mac is recommended here.”
Hard drive can be formatted using both FAT32 and exFAT. Which one is better? FAT32 or exFAT?
How To Format External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc Using
Once you have done with formatting, the drive will be compatible to be read and written to on both a Mac and PC, and the resulting FAT file system is compatible with all versions of Mac OS X, and Windows, including Windows 10, it’s one of the most widely recognized and usable file system formats.
This widespread compatibility makes FAT an ideal file system to use for external hard drives that are intended for use in environments with multiple operating systems.
One of the limitations of using FAT32 is the file size limit, which limits files on the drive to being 4GB in size or less. If you require single files to be larger than 4GB, use exFAT instead, though you will lose some compatibility with older versions of Mac OS X and Windows.
Why can’t you use NTFS on Mac?
The NTFS file system is another option to use for Windows formatted drives and volumes, but it has limited compatibility with Mac OS by default. Mac users can mount and read NTFS formatted Windows drives, making NTFS compatible with the Mac on the reading and mounting front, but writing to an NTFS drive requires using either third party software or enabling NTFS write support on the Mac using an experimental functionality bundled on the Mac. So if you want to do heavy file sharing between Mac and Windows with a lot of reading and writing, it is better to format a drive as FAT32 as discussed above.
Format External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc Without Losing Data
However, backup any data on the external hard drive you want to keep on another device before formatting. Formatting a hard drive will erase all data that’s stored on it. Both Windows and Mac OS X allow you to adjust the size of the format partitions on external hard drives. Set the number to the maximum to use the entire drive in a single partition. FAT32 formatted drives also work for PC and Mac sharing, in particular with older versions of both operating systems. However, Microsoft recommends against using FAT32 whenever possible in favor of exFAT.