In the sidebar, select the disk you want to format to use with windows computers. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. You can apply the thirdparty solution to format fat32 in windows 10 even when there is no fat32 option in windows 10 explorer or disk management. Mac can read all the file system formats including windows msdos, fat, fat32. For example, in the screenshot below, the mac formatted drive is disk 2. You can select to use a fat, fat32, exfat, ntfs, or refs file system when formatting. Now that you know which format to use, check out our guide on how to format your hard. How to format your hard drive to exfat file system on windows. Click the format popup menu, then choose one of the following. But to get a hard drive to be compatible for both mac and pc, you have to choose the. 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.
How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. 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. If you move a hard drive between the two operating systems, heres what you need to know. Go to the applications folder on your macs hard drive, then go to the utilities folder, and launch disk utility. Select exfat when formatting an external drive with windows. Make sure your external hard drive is attached and mounted to. Give the drive a descriptive name and leave the default settings. Format external hard drive with windows builtin tool. Disk utility shows the recommended mac format by default. Create and format a hard disk partition windows help. How to format a disk or drive in windows 10 format is the process of preparing a data storage device such as a hard disk drive, solidstate drive, or usb flash drive for initial use to accept windows files. Plug your hd into the mac and open disk utility, which can be accessed by searching for it in spotlight. If you want to format your external hard drive to work with mac and windows computers, you should use exfat. You will learn the easiest way to format drive on mac and windows as exfat.
Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on mac. However, when we connect a ntfs formatted disk to mac, mac os x doesnt allow us to write files to the drive neither edit files, though it can read a ntfs drive. This also allows you to restore time machine backups on windows. How to open mac format usb devce in windows youtube. Jan 17, 2019 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. Select the new untitled partition so we can format it as exfat for use with both mac and windows. How to format hard drive and fix disk format errors on your mac errors can damage your hard disk and prevent it from functioning properly. If this is the case for you, rightclick the drive you want to format and click initialize disk. Click erase and from the format dropdown select exfat. Both mac os x and windows also support the fat32 file system, but we dont recommend it for hard drives. How to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc. Aug 31, 2016 to create a partition or volume the two terms are often used interchangeably on a hard disk, you must be logged in as an administrator, and there must be either unallocated disk space or free space within an extended partition on the hard disk. Nov 22, 2019 i have an old external 1 tb hard drive id like to format for use with apple time machine backup. Formatting the disk you can format an external hard drive or thumb drive to work seamlessly with both mac and windows by using the exfat file system.
Format external hard disk drive for mac os and windows. In the disk management, youll see your external hard drive as partition or. Insert the flash drive or hard drive you want to format for windows compatibility. If you format your external hard drive to hfs, you can use it on mac and linux by removing journaling. First, note the number of the disk in the disk management window. Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. Now that we know the good and bad about every file system, let see how to format a drive in windows, mac, and linux. In general, windows builtin tools disk management and diskpart can format drive to exfat easily. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. The problem is that the disk is currently formatted as ntfs and is not readable with time machine. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. How to format usb driveexternal hard drive on macos catalina.
You can format an external hard drive or thumb drive to work seamlessly with both mac and windows by using the exfat file system. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Hard drive format software for mac mac disk format software. To format your external drive hard drive in windows which works with both platforms, first plugin your drive with windows machine. Sep 26, 2018 windows pc and mac use different filesystems.
But to get a hard drive to be compatible for both mac and pc, you have to. You would not be able to use this disk for long hd videos and large. If you dont want to format the external hard drive for mac exclusively, you can choose msdos fat or exfat. Mar, 2020 follow the windows 10 fat32 format tutorial to format hdd to fat32 or format external hard drive to fat32 in windows 10. Fortunately, there are some mac hard drive format software or smart disk formatting applications can help you securely and easily format, reformat, or erase hard drive under mac os. Choose either apfs or mac os extended journaled to format as a mac volume. You can select the exfat format when using the disk utility to format the drive. Here are two outstanding mac hard drive format software tools you can rely on. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac.
Mar 29, 2019 how to format a hard drive on mac to work on mac and pc. How to format new hard drive on windows 10 windows central. Download disk formatting software for mac doyourdata. 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. The below steps for formatting external drive is for windows 10 and also works the same with an old version of windows. Bonus tip data recovery from formatted hard drive on mac. On mac computers, use the finder app to browse and manage files on your computer and external hard drives. Then click the second partition, name it mac, and change its format to mac os extended journaled.
One simple way to make the drive readable on both platforms is to format it to exfat, which both operating systems can understand. Both mac os x and windows allow users to format their hard drives using builtin utilities. For windows, it offers quick format feature when you rightclick the hard drive on the computer. How to format external hard drive for pc, mac and linux. It will automatically locate the connected drive, and you can load it. 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. Format your external drive with exfat for both mac and. Select the volume in the finder, then choose file get info from the menu bar. While formatting, you would be asked to pick a file system for the disk. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive.
File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple. With disk utility open, locate the hard drive you want to partition and select partition. How to format external ssd for mac time machine mashtips. 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. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. First to format your wd elements external drive to mac os extended journaled file system. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. With exfat, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years. Give your settings a final lookover and click apply. Now, click on the top partition, name it windows, and change its format to msdos. 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.
Format usb drive, external hard drive on macos catalina. Open the start menu and search for disk management. Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. Usb drives and external hard drives on macos catalina are used for storing and backing up important data such. However, when you format your hard drive with super eraser for mac. Select the mbr or gpt partition table format and click ok to create a partition table for the disk. Partition a hard drive for macos time machine and windows 10 backups.
If you have already joined the data loss club unwillingly, then try running diy applications to recover data from mac and windows. How to format an external drive to work seamlessly with macs. To start, your first step will be to find disk utility. How to format a flash drive for mac and pc compatibility. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Open the disk management tool by rightclicking this pc manage disk management.
Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac. Mar 31, 2020 how to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or. Oct 25, 2016 usb devices,that are formatted in mac format.
How to format hard drive and fix disk format errors on mac. Click the file menu and select load file system from device. This works with any hard drive, flash drive, ssd, usb drive, or just about any other. How to format a hard drive on mac to work on mac and pc. Nov 19, 2015 how to format an external hard drive or pen drive. External hard drives use either spinning disks or solid memory to save your files.
Select the drive from the left sidebar, then click the partition tab. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. Mar 15, 2018 windows cant normally read macformatted drives, and will offer to erase them instead. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. However, to use it on windows you can hfs explorer read only. That said, if you are using both a pc and mac in the workflow, youll need to use a different format. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. 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. Jun 30, 2018 you will learn how to format the external hard disk which has default ntfs format, to make it compatible with mac os.
Macdisk is a 32bit application and runs under all recent versions of windows vista and 78 included, even 64 bits. From all above, you can have a general idea of fat32 and exfat file system. Open system information and select storage in the sidebar. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac cnet.
Both windows and mac os offer builtin disk formatting tool. Mac os x sierra open disk utility and click the drive you want to format. 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. Rightclick in the unallocated space on the initialized disk and. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac.
Next, open a command prompt window as administrator. How to wipe a hard drive in windows 10 and macos techradar. Formatting your drive to exfat file system is very easy. The exfat format supports virtually any size hard drive and file, unlike the outdated fat32 format. For example, in the screenshot below, the macformatted drive is disk 2. If you want to format a hard drive or usb flash drive on your computer, disk formatting tool is the best choice. Connect your external hard drive to your windows 10 pc. As both windows and mac provide native solutions to format hard drive, you should avoid using any unreliable thirdparty tool. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. Apfs or mac os extended select the volume in the disk utility sidebar, then check the information on the right. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step. Therefore, based on these three file systems, we have two methods to make external hard drive compatible with mac. Simply follow any of the methods discussed in the article and successfully format your drive to exfat file system. Out of the box, windows can not read or write hfs drives, and macs are.
In general, windows builtin tools disk management and diskpart can format drive. Format wd elements for mac and pc have your drive for both. Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc.
Apr 17, 2020 how to format your hard drive to exfat file system on windows 10. Before a hard drive can read or write data, it must first be formatted, or erased and reconfigured. For whatever reason you need to create and format a hard disk partition in windows 10, following lets see how to perform this task. In the disk utility app on your mac, choose view show all devices. Give the partition a name and select exfat for the format. Dec 29, 2015 how to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Both fat32 and exfat can be used on windows pc and mac. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows.
How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard. A vast majority of video production will be done on a mac or windows operating system, so we arent going to cover linux. This will prompt a new window asking you to select a partition style for your disk. How to format hard drives on windows, mac and linux. Apr 18, 2019 heres how to wipe the data off a hard drive, ssd, or external drive in windows 10 and macos. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. When you use a hard disk drive, time machine will take a while to back up your mac. 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. The easiest way to do that is hit cmd and the spacebar at. Click the scheme popup menu, then choose master boot record. Partition a hard drive for macos time machine and windows. Connect the empty external hd to your mac and launch disk utility. Read mac formatted drives with windows the tech guy.
Next, under the partition layout column, specify the number of partitions you want. Therefore, make sure that the file system is supported by your mac or windows. Two ways to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc fat32, exfat and ntfs are three file systems for external drive in windows, while ntfs is readonly on mac. How to format a drive for mac and pc compatibility posted by ant on march 11th, 2012 43 comments if you have an external hard drive or usb flash drive that youd like to use on both macs and windows pcs, choosing the right file system to format. Then your western digital external hard drive is ready to use on your mac and on your windows. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. To utilize the hard disk space on your windows 10 pc more efficiently, you can create new partitions. Gpt is a newer format supporting larger capacities, but isnt compatible with. 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 drive formatted in a file system both oss can. If you want to use the usb devices in windows you have to know how to do it. However, when we connect a ntfs formatted disk to mac, mac os. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the formatting option for pc.
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