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