Are you formatting the disk that came built into your mac. If you recently purchased an external hard drive or portable ssd for your mac, you probably noticed that mac os x doesnt allow you to write data on to the drive. Want to use a single external drive with both a mac and a windows pc. How to use toshiba external hard drive on mac solved. Understanding hard drive partitioning with disk management. How to erase and format an external hard drive on mac and. Also take a look at how to install and run windows on a mac. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard drive. While mac os x can read hard drives formatted as ntfs, write access is.
How to format or partition an external hard drive on mac. Well show you everything you need to know about the. If you need to erase your disk before installing high sierra or later for the first time on that disk, choose mac os extended journaled. Or perhaps you are setting up an external drive for backups. How to format an external disk or a flash drive for mac. Reformatting a hard drive is often done just to erase all of its contents. Now your external drive has been formatted to be fully compatible with apple macos, and you can edit, read, and write files to it as you want. Click on the apply button and wait until the process has completed. Want to format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc.
Mac os extended journaledunless you install thirdparty software such. Formatting an external hard drive for os apple community. Formatting a hard drive can change the file system to make it compatible with your computers. Therfore, you can connect backup plus desktop to a windows pc without formatting the hard drive. The best way to do it is with a drive formatted as fat32. Formatting your toshiba hard drive for mac is important, as it makes the hard drive best suitable for the mac by formatting it. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Want to format a hard drive for mac and pc compatibility. I am splitting it into 2 partitions, the 1st one is 150gb mac extended journaled and the 2nd is 350gb msdos later to format to ntfs in windows. Lets take a look at the different types of formats, and which are best for video production. However, ntfs is not fully compatible with mac computers.
Most external hard drives are designed to work for windows computers. It seems they formatted the drive to the mac format, but i have no way to access the data, at least i think. If you want to format your external hard drive to work with mac and windows computers, you should use exfat. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. I am having trouble formatting my maxtor one touch 4 external hard drive. This is a simple procedure and is achieved the same way for all drive types and through all connections, be they usb, firewire, or thunderbolt. Ive formatted this with disk utility and separated it into 2 partitions. Using your toshiba external hard drive to backup to. 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 reformat my external hard drive for windows 10 i have a lacie d2 quadra 1tb external hard drive. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the. Mac os x can only be installed on a hard drive formatted in mac os extended journaled, filesystem.
With exfat, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years. Are you about to install macos high sierra or later on the disk. I have files larger than 4gb so the msdos fat 32 may not work for my needs. Heres how to format a drive using a mac including how to format a drive for windows and mac so the contents can be. Mac os extended journaled is the normal recomended way to format your drives, internal and external. How to recover data from formatted external hard drive on mac. Formatting an external drive for use with an apple mac before you can use a new or old drive with a mac you will need to format it. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Mac os x and windows can both read and write to disks in the fat or exfat format. 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.
Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. After disk utility loads select the external hard drive. 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. Thus, when you are planning to use the same hard drive on any other os, particularly macos, it is always suggested to format your hard drive for mac. But if you didnt foresee that, you may have formatted your drive with apples hfs plus, which windows cant read by default. Your backup plus desktop is formatted as ntfs for compatibility with windows out of the box. I know mac operating system doesnt fully supports ntfs formatted drive. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the formatting option for pc.
Mac os extended journaled is the best option for most mac users. To put it simply, if you want to share external hard drive between mac and pc, you need to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with. Follow onscreen prompts to choose mac os extended journaled file system and allow the disk to format. Transferring data from a mac to pc via an external hard drive. Launch disk utility open applications utilities, which is found through finder, then open the disk utility. There are several options which we will look at to help you choose the correct format for you and show you how to ready the disk for use step 1. Mac os extended journaled you need macdrive installed in windows. Some people are asking for a way to format a hard drive for mac.
How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. Both mac os x and windows allow users to format their hard drives using builtin utilities. While its convenient to purchase the hard drive that will work with your computer right out of the box, most external hard drives can also be reformatted so youre not limited to your initial choice. For far disk utility has been running for 10 minutes and it hasnt moved from the 110 mark on the status bar.
How to restore files from a time machine backup on windows. Heres how to format a drive using a mac including how to format a drive for. You can use your toshiba canvio drive as a destination for your time machine backups but you can only use drives formatted as mac os extended journaled file system for a time machine backup. How to make external hard drive to work with mac and. Now, your external hard drive is formatted and is as good as new.
I had information from a broken mac backed up at best buy, but because my mac broke, now i only have a windows computer. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. 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. I want to be able to see my macs external hard disk, in windows 10 pc. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. The best format for your external hard drive the hellotech blog. How to format seagate drive for mac and pc quickly and. This tool allows you to manage the partitions on drives connected to your computer. You can format a drive in os x using two applications. But to get a hard drive to be compatible for both mac and pc, you have to. Formatting iomega external hard drive apple community. Follow these instructions if you plan to share an external hard drive between pc and mac computers.
How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. How to format an external drive for mac compatibility. Select the second option manage from the rightclick menu. How to format an external drive for mac all things how.
The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac cnet. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and. How to reformat my external hard drive for windows 10. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. Before digging in, select a primary format youll use the most. When formatting a hard drive with disk utility, make sure to. I may wish to use it for both mac and windows if that is possible so my question is, what are the best formats for this situation. Most external hard drives hd are sold in a format called ntfs, which is designed. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. Apple has built os x yosemite and some previous os x releases with the ability to read from those disks just fine. If the builtin disk came apfsformatted, dont change it to mac os extended. Aomei partition assistant is such a great simple tool for formatting external hard drive for mac and windows. Besides, you can use it to manage your hard drive partitions such as resize partition, delete partition, split partition, merge partitions, etc.
Looking to share an external hard drive between a mac and pc. Now either because of time, corruption or because it may have been. 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. Fortunately disk utility, built right into macos, can help. If you have never formatted a drive before on the mac, dont worry, its super easy and well walk you through the entire process. Select the volume you just created this is the subentry under the drive entry from the left side list. Formatting an external drive on your mac is quite easy, though it isnt as evident and obvious as it is on a pc. Accessing mac formatted external hd from windows pc. When you connect a macformatted drive to windows, youll be informed that you need to format the disk in drive x. 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. Your old external windows pc drive will work great on the mac. Theres also the option of macos extended journaled, encrypted which is a good choice if you are. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. If you wish to change to mac os extended journaled.
Now, find the fat32 partition and format it to os x extended journaled. I always format a new drive as mac os extended journaled, immediatly and before use. But unfortunately it bit the dust and i decided to get a pc. Now that you know which format to use, check out our guide on how to format your hard drive on. This is because the drive has been initialized for windows nt file system, ntfs for short, and ntfs is. How to use mac formatted external hard drive on windows. Windows cant normally read mac formatted drives, and will offer to erase them instead. How to erase and format an external hard drives on windows. How to share an external drive between a mac and a pc pcworld. Formatting windows external drive macrumors forums.
Its happening because its been initialized with windows nt file system ntfs, which is primarily for windows pcs. The formatting decides the way the files are stored on your hard disk. Windows cant normally read macformatted drives, and will offer to erase. Seagate backup plus hub is available in two models, windows and mac. You have to set it up correctly before getting starting. Using an external hard drive formatted on with windows. Make external harddrive compatible with mac and windows computer, how to format using disk utility on mac. Macos extended if you primarily use mac with a secondary exfat partition, or. I have purchased a 1tb portable external seagate hard drive and i would like to use it with both my mac and windows computer. Why need to format external hard drive for mac and pc. When formatting partitions, windows 7s disk management utility wont let. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. How to share an external drive between a mac and a pc.
Wondering what the best format for your new external hard drive is. In this article, well show you how to format your external drive for a maccompatible file system i. On mac computers, use the finder app to browse and manage files on your computer and external hard drives. Apples mac devices support a different file system. Ive ordered a usb to sata cable to format the drive from another mac, but can i format the drive, as os x extended journaled, in windows. In case you forgot to backup files before formatting the external drive. Macs may also create a protected efi partition on these drives that you cant delete with the usual diskpartitioning tools. This also allows you to restore time machine backups on windows. 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. Either way, youll want to format your drive accordingly.
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