While apfs is optimized for the flashssd storage used in recent mac computers, it can also be used with older systems with. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your mac. How to format a hard drive for mac internal, external or flash. Jun 02, 2017 in this video we look at the process of formatting a hard drive, flash drive, or ssd on an apple computer. How to format hard drive and fix disk format errors on mac. May 01, 2020 how to erase a disk for mac use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. For formatted mac hard drive recovery, the most important thing is to find a professional and easytouse data recovery software for mac. It is the reliable disk formatting tool for windowsmac. Just like windows, macos also gives us a seamless option to format hard drive for mac and pc. Before using an external hard drive on a mac, you should format it using disk utility. Paragon disk wipe allows you to create a bootable usbflash drive or external hard drive that will help you to completely erase a whole hard disk, a separate partition or just clean free space. Click on disk utility then continue first of all to get your macs hard drive wiped.
How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. Please remember that all data will be deleted from the drive, so make sure you have made a backup. When i attempted to transfer any file to the hard drive the following came up. It will automatically locate the connected drive, and you can load it. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another.
This is a great thing to do when you first purchase a drive or when you are looking to. 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. Heres how to format a drive if you are planning to use it with a mac. 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. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. 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. Then, you can share external hard drive between mac and pc. Select the number of sections or partitions you want to set up on. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Smaller external hard drives, ssds, and usb flash keys format quickly, while a larger hard drive may take a while longer. After i formatted the hard drive last time to msdos fat32. In all likelihood, youre more acquainted with formatting an external hard drive than your macs internal one, arent you. 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.
Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. External hard drive compatible with mac and pc without. Dont click the format disk button or windows will erase the contents of the driveclick cancel. How to format an external drive for mac compatibility.
Either way there is a solution to having an existing external hard drive for mac and pc. If you dont see this option, try typing create and format hard disk partitions into start. Select your startup drive on the left typically macintosh hd, switch to the erase tab and choose mac os. 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 the drive will permanently erase all the data and files stored on the hard drive forever. Click your hard drive s name in the window near the bottom of the screen. To format a hard drive, you can take advantage of a piece of thirdparty software. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. How to format a startup drive for a mac if you want to format a drive that will be used as your macs startup disk, the procedure is a little different from formatting it for use as a secondary. How to format wd external drive for mac apple community. Apple file system apfs, the default file system for mac computers using macos 10. Formatting a drive on macos is reasonably accessible as compared to other operating systems due to its incredible gui. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac.
To use hfsexplorer, connect your macformatted drive to your windows pc and launch hfsexplorer. Once formatted, the existing data on the disk are probably unrecoverable for most people. Instructions for how to format your external drive so that it will be fully usable in macos. Reformatting the drive will erase all data on the drive, so you should copy any data you want off the drive prior to formatting. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac.
How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. I have purchased a 1tb portable external seagate hard drive and i would like to use it with both my mac and windows computer. For most reasons to erase, including when reformatting a disk or selling, giving away, or trading in your mac, you should erase your entire disk. Oct 09, 2019 this wikihow teaches you how to format a seagate hard drive on a mac computer. This will format the drive as exfat format and your drive is now compatible with both platforms. Then proceed to highlight your computers hard drive. 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.
You can format a drive using the disk utility in mac. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac. Once youve unboxed your new drive, connect it to your mac. However, when you format your hard drive with super eraser for mac, all your data will be permanently lost. Dec, 2019 now enter the name for the external drive which will be used after formatting and also select exfat for format option and click on the erase. This insures that you will have a compatible hard drive with. How to share an external drive between a mac and a pc. Now enter the name for the external drive which will be used after formatting and also select exfat for format option and click on the erase. Yet when you connect a macformatted drive to windows, youll be informed that you need to format the disk in drive x. Download disk formatting software for mac doyourdata. Change the partition layout from current to 1 partition. However, if you want to convert ntfs to exfat to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc, 3 steps are required. Sep 20, 2019 click create and format hard disk paritions. Thus, the professional partition manager minitool partition wizard is recommended.
In the format partition section, select the file system. You can choose whatever name you want, and you should choose guid partition map for the. Click on the erase button to start erasing the external hard drive or usb. 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. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar. So, whether you wish to format the internal hard drive, external drive, or a usb flash drive, the procedure is the same for all. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. 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.
Launch disk utility and then click to select the external hard drive listed on the left. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. How to erase a disk for mac use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for mac and pc without losing any data. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. For this guide i used a friends macbook pro that they had accidentally formatted the entire hard drive on, erasing all of their information but also the operating system. As it is mentioned above, after formatting a hard drive, all data on the hard drive will be erased. 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. How to install os x after formatting your hard drive. And it also wipes out all the bugs and harmful files that might harm your mac. Apr 14, 2020 by this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for mac and pc without losing any data. In this post, youll learn how to format an external drive to a mac compatible file system and recover files from a reformatted hard drive.
Opening disk management can be done a number of ways depending on your version of windows, but the easiest method is to type diskmgmt. Make sure your external hard drive is attached and mounted to. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. How to format seagate drive for mac and pc quickly and. First, back up the data on the macformatted drive if you have anything important on it. This wikihow teaches you how to format a seagate hard drive on a mac computer. It has many powerful features, such as migrate os to ssd, clone disk and so on. In the disk utility, select the external drive from the list on the left and then click the partition tab.
File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple. What disk utility looks like in lion through yosemite. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. 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. Run aweeraser for mac choose erase hard drive select hard drive click on erase button format the selected hard drive.
How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. I know mac operating system doesnt fully supports ntfs formatted drive. Once it finishes creating them, you can move the drive between macs and windows pcs, and move files back and forth easily. The below steps for formatting external drive is for windows 10 and also. Click the file menu and select load file system from device.
The following is based on the latest version of macos. I hope you enjoyed my article on how to make an external hard drive compatible with mac and pc without reformatting. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. How to format a hard drive for mac internal, external or. Open disk management, the hard drive manager included with all versions of windows. These steps can be used for both internal and external drives. Using it, you can erase a hard drive, create new partitions, and even repair your disk as well. Each partition can be managed as a separate hard drive for organizing folders, storing backup files, or as a hybrid system containing mac and windowsformatted drives. Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. Apr 29, 2020 follow these easy steps to format a hard drive in windows 10, windows 8, windows 7, windows vista, or windows xp. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them.
Formatting a hard drive will take a while and wait for it patiently. Make your mac feel like new again with a fresh install of os x. The formatting process also includes you to connect the device, open utilities and then find disk utility to format a particular drive. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. 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. The best format for your external hard drive the hellotech blog.
Go through this article and find out the easiest way to format your toshiba drive for mac. If youre formatting a drive that youve been using and that has data on it, doublecheck in explorer that the drive letter youre choosing here in disk management is the same as the one you see in explorer that has the information on it that you want to erase. Apr 26, 2020 for formatted mac hard drive recovery, the most important thing is to find a professional and easytouse data recovery software for mac. And my recommendation is easeus data recovery wizard for mac, which has the highest chance of success in unformatting your mac hard drive. Oct 16, 2019 if you want to format your external hard drive to work with mac and windows computers, you should use exfat. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. Unformat mac hard drive recover formatted hard drive on.
The operating system has an inbuilt tool, which is known as disk utility. How to format a hard drive with ease in windows 1087. After you connect an external drive to your mac, open the applications folder from the finder window. Which mac file system is best for an external drive. I have already tried to format this hard drive and eventually had to return it as it did not work on mac or windows.
Dec 08, 2016 for this guide i used a friends macbook pro that they had accidentally formatted the entire hard drive on, erasing all of their information but also the operating system. This is a simple procedure and is achieved the same way for all drive types and through. Instead, well just be wiping the drive and starting over from scratch. Whether you go the software or hardware route depends on your situation. The operation cant be completed because the item is in use. Now that you know which format to use, check out our guide on how to format your hard drive on a mac. People might need to format a hard drive or an external hard drive in windows 10 for various reasons. If you have a mac lying around, you can plug the drive into a mac and back up the files. Before formatting any hard drive, its a good idea to backup any data or files you want to save before formatting. This process wont actually convert the file system. With exfat, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years. Click your hard drives name in the window near the bottom of the screen. Before beginning the formatting approach for your mac, let me tell you that the drive is able to read wiki data only when it is formatted to wbfs with a usb loader.
Hard drive format software for mac mac disk format software. Please note that once the hard drive is formatted by aweeraser for mac, all the data on the hard drive will be permanently erased, cant be recovered by data recovery software or. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. In this video we look at the process of formatting a hard drive, flash drive, or ssd on an apple computer. Click the erase tab, choose a volume format from the dropdown menu and then type a. Formatting is a very simple procedure which is operated in a similar way for all sorts of storage media.
Quick access to recover formatted hard drive on mac. Formatting your toshiba hard drive for mac is important, as it makes the hard drive best suitable for the mac by formatting it with the osspecific file system and drivers. It is professional partition magic which is designed to optimize partition and disk use. Unformat mac hard drive recover formatted hard drive on mac. Jan 23, 2020 i hope you enjoyed my article on how to make an external hard drive compatible with mac and pc without reformatting. The videos below demonstrate the complete process of formatting an external hard drive for full mac os x compatibility, this uses the. Jan 04, 2012 smaller external hard drives, ssds, and usb flash keys format quickly, while a larger hard drive may take a while longer. In the main interface, right click the partition on that need. Once your data is backed up and youve signed out of everything that might connect your old mac to your personal information, you can erase everything on it by reformatting the hard drive. The disk utility application is located in the utilities subfolder.