This is a simple procedure and is achieved the same way for all drive types and through. There may be occasions, however, when you want to reformat your macs hard drive. Launch disk utility and then click to select the external hard drive. Hfs had been introduced in 1985 to support apples first mac hard drive, the 20 mb hard disk 20, which connected via the slow floppy disk port. Let me teach you in 10 steps how to partition wd my passport for mac. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac. Formatting a hard drive can change the file system to make it compatible with your computers. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. How to share an external drive between a mac and a pc. However, ntfs is not fully compatible with mac computers. You cannot format the whole hard drive doing so would erase your operating systembut you can format a portion of the hard drive after c. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. It will automatically locate the connected drive, and you can load it. 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. Moving files from macformatted external hard drive to pc. Once disk utility is open youll see the list of available drives on the left.
Connect the hard drive or usb key to the mac launch disk utility, located in applications utilities locate the drive name from the left hand side of disk utility and click on it. How to install macos or os x on a new hard drive for your mac. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Youll want to do it before you sell your machine, for sure, but its also one of the steps you take when you. Click the file menu and select load file system from device. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Formatting your drive will wipe out all the data in it. A solid state drive is primarily used on mac machine.
Now that you know which format to use, check out our guide on how to format your hard drive on. Format any hard drive for older macs with patched apple tools. Even though mac computers are capable of reading hard drives that are formatted for windows, if you intend on using your external hdd as a bootable disk or want to use it to backup files with your mac s time machine, you must format it to be entirely mac compatible. For instructions on how to format your hard drive on a mac, please reference the following links.
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. So you figured, fine, ill just get an external hard drive. Learn more about erasing hard disks on mac from apple. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. Now ntfs works fine with computers and is the standard file system, but for some reasons, developers decided that the ps4 wont support this file system. 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. That said, if you are using both a pc and mac in the workflow, youll need to use a different. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. Go through this article and find out the easiest way to format your toshiba drive for mac. Download disk formatting software for mac doyourdata. If you want to use a different file system on your usb drive, youll need to format it.
Formatting a drive will erase all data and partitions on the disk. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. Therefore, it is necessary to present a tutorial guide here to format or partition a hard drive within mac os. Select the external hard drive on the lefthand side. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. Choose either apfs or mac os extended journaled to format as a mac volume. Click the erase tab, choose a volume format from the dropdown menu and then type a name for the drive. If you want to recycle a ssd, formatting is the best way to remove all history data from the ssd.
How to format hard drive for mac and pc on windows. Therfore, you can connect backup plus desktop to a windows pc without formatting the hard drive. If its an external hard drive then it should appear in the left nav bar. To sum up, it is easy to format an external hard drive for both mac and windows pc. To use hfsexplorer, connect your macformatted drive to your windows pc and launch hfsexplorer. Heres how to format a drive if you are planning to use it with a mac. Heres how to format an external hard drive for windows 10 or partition it. How to reinstall macos from macos recovery apple support. But compared with formatting, an ntfs for mac driver like iboysoft ntfs for mac is a better and feasible solution.
Ill store my media files on it while keeping the internal hard drive clear for apps and the os. Floppy disk compatibility and incompatibility in the mac. Again, formatting a drive will erase it completely, so make sure you have everything backed up that you want to keep. And that is exactly what partitioning up splitting using the mac operating system software allows you to do.
Add virtual cd and dvd drives to your pc with alcohol. When formatting a hard drive with disk utility, make sure to select the correct drive. 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. Your backup plus desktop is formatted as ntfs for compatibility with windows out of the box.
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. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. If you only need to format a hard drive securely, free partition manager easeus partition master free can be your best choice. As mentioned before, macs can only read ntfs formatted hard drives by default.
Some people are asking for a way to format a hard drive for mac. How to format new hard drive on windows 10 windows central. To format your external drive hard drive in windows which works with both platforms, first plugin your drive with windows machine. Disk utility shows the recommended mac format by default. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. How you format a mac hard dr ive is entirely dependent on what kind of drive you plan on formatting. Change the partition layout from current to 1 partition. Apfs or mac os extended select the volume in the disk utility sidebar, then check the information on the right. Use a software solution you get a piece of software that sits on your mac. Feb 08, 2012 if a drive has data on it, formatting the drive will remove all of the pointers to your files. The easiest way to do that is hit cmd and the spacebar at. 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. Before continuing, make sure that you have a backup of any files that you want to keep. Format any hard drive for older macs with patched apple tools tyler sable 2007.
How to format an external drive for mac launch disk utility. Dec 29, 2015 laptopmag is supported by its audience. See troubleshooting for more information on which format to select. If its an internal drive partition then it should also appear in. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. Give the drive a descriptive name and leave the default settings. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Formatting your hard drive for ppc or intel based macs by brian bellman in order to boot from an intel based or ppc based mac, you may need to change the partition map. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. This insures that you will have a compatible hard drive with. Our team of experts has selected the best external hard drives for macs out of hundreds of models. 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.
Format mac hard drive with time machine formatting an external hard drive with time machine is as easy as formatting it with disk utility. Open system information and select storage in the sidebar. This is a great thing to do when you first purchase a drive. 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 to perform read from and. When done, quit disk utility to return to the utilities window. Feb 03, 2020 use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. How to format a new or second hard drive on mac mac is obviously a very much different operating system from windows, let alone their features and steps to format a hard drive. If you are trying to format mac external hard drive, you can go over the process step by step. You will find that os x is very stable in comparison, it defragments its hard drive on an ongoing basis and it does not get bogged down with additional software in the way that a windows machine does. How you format a mac hard drive is entirely dependent on what kind of drive you plan on formatting. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. Open finder and choose applications utilities disk utility to launch.
The bootable partition map for ppc is apm apple partition map which is apples default. Step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. Launch disk utility and then click to select the external hard drive listed on the left. Those with pre1986 macs had to boot from a floppy drive that would install the hfs drivers that allowed them to boot from the hfs formatted hard drive. Before using an external hard drive on a mac, you should format it using disk utility. Time machine, however, gives you the possibility to create an automatic backup of the data on your hard drive before formatting it. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. 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. External hard drive compatible with mac and pc without. Need to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. You might want a drive that works with macs and pcs, or maybe you want to partition it, which will split it up into two different formats.
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. Jan, 2019 another disadvantage is if youre formatting a thumb drive larger than 32gb using a windows pc, you need to download extra software in order to do the formatting. If youre not sure, eject and disconnect each drive, then only reconnect the drive you want to erase. Partition wd my passport for mac, teach yourself in 10 steps.
Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. 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. A hard drive format refers to how the operating system stores the data on the drive. 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 os specific file system and drivers. How to use the format command to write zeros to a hard drive. This wikihow teaches you how to format your computers builtin hard drive. Everything you need to know about your macs hard drive by ian spence 8. Os x, windows, and linux all use different hard drive formatting for normal system operations.
Mar 29, 2019 how to format a hard drive on mac to work on mac and pc. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. The operating system has an inbuilt tool, which is known as disk utility. Formatting doesnt securely erase the contents of a hard drive. Proceed based on whether youre erasing your startup disk or some other disk. Looking to share an external hard drive between a mac and pc. Create a bootable usb drive for ubuntu using mac or windows how to. Select the volume in the finder, then choose file get info from the menu bar. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Usb drives and external hard drives on macos catalina are used for storing and backing up important data such as photos, videos, audios, images, notes, messages, music files, pdf files, word documents, among other files. Format usb drive, external hard drive on macos catalina. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the. How to format new or second hard drive on windows 10mac. This wikihow teaches you how to change an external usb hard drives format on windows and mac computers.
Besides formatting, you can enjoy more advanced features such as shrinking, extending, merging hard drive partition, clone hard drive, etc. With exfat, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years. Since formatting an external hard drive will erase all of its files if you wish to save them you must back them up copy. The best way to do it is with a drive formatted as fat32. How to format usb drive external hard drive on macos catalina. It supports to format hard drive in computers without any technical skill. 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. Some external hard drives need to be plugged into an outlet to work. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility. Click on the erase option from the four options available in the main window.
You can check the progress by watching the formatting. How to format an external hard drive for windows 10. Jul 26, 2019 as the cost per gb of hard drive space falls, it becomes practical to buy a larger external hard drive and use it for several purposes. First, lets see how to format an external hard drive or usb drive in macos which works with both mac and pc platforms, first plugin your drive in macos machine. Then you can choose one of the hard drive and format it by click on format button. You can select the exfat format when using the disk. To format c means to format the drive that the operating system is on, which is usually the c drive. How to format a hard drive on mac to work on mac and pc. You have to set it up correctly before getting starting. If your mac is using apfs, select apfs from the format list.
Everything you need to know about your macs hard drive. Simply put, your ps4 isnt recognizing the file system of your drive, which is most probably ntfs. Reformatting a hard drive is often done just to erase all of its contents. To format a drive on a mac, youll need the builtin disk utility application. If your mac or pc has a windows os installed, then you wont face any trouble managing it. The best format for your external hard drive the hellotech blog. If you want to format your external hard drive to work with mac and windows computers, you should use exfat. Copy a data disk uing one optical drive using disk utility on os x how to. After you connect an external drive to your mac, open the applications folder from the finder window.
Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the. Every major version of the operating system provides a dedicated solution to format hard drive. If you want to write to ntfs formatted hard drives in mac os x, youre going to need the help of a thirdparty driver. Formatting a hard drive is the best way to start from scratch on a geeky project. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods revealed. You just need to know how to format external hard drive for ps4. Mar 12, 2018 want to format a hard drive for mac and pc compatibility. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b.
The disk utility application is located in the utilities subfolder. How to format an external drive for mac compatibility. In the main interface, right click the partition on that need. How to partition and format your hard drive in windows pcworld. If a wireless network is available, you can choose it from the wifi menu in the menu bar. All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your mac. Formatting your drive will erase all the existing files on it. A vast majority of video production will be done on a mac or windows operating system, so we arent going to cover linux. There are three common filesystems that are used today.
To learn how to format in mac your hard drive, follow these steps. To format external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. This makes it very easy to reuse an old hard drive from a laptop or desktop that was previously used to boot an os. Dont think the formatting will delete everything on external hard drive, it data still remain the hard drive waiting for next data and easily be recovered by some free data recovery, this article gives three ways to delete files on hard drive. Though this format has some limitations, it enjoys nearly universal support. If you already used your external hard drive on a pc, be sure to back up any files on it. The mac os x extended volume format is optimal for macs.
How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. How to format a hard dr ive on mac to work on mac and pc. Formatting your hard drive for ppc or intel based macs by. From all above, you can have a general idea of fat32 and exfat file system. Jan 23, 2020 options for having an external hard drive for mac and pc without formatting. Find the hard drive you want to format, and highlight it.
In this video we look at the process of formatting a hard drive, flash drive, or ssd on an apple computer. For instance, is the hard drive internal or external. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. And it also wipes out all the bugs and harmful files that might harm your mac. This drive will only be used for audio and i was told to format the drive in mac os extended with journaling disabled and a single partition. How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. Feb 21, 2012 once it finishes creating them, you can move the drive between macs and windows pcs, and move files back and forth easily. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. The below steps for formatting external drive is for windows 10 and also works the same with an old version of windows. Using it, you can erase a hard drive, create new partitions, and even repair your disk as well. Just like windows, macos also gives us a seamless option to format hard drive for mac and pc. In this video i format a hard drive to use as backup. How to format a startup drive for a mac if you want to format a drive that will be used as your mac s startup disk, the procedure is a little different from formatting it for use as a secondary.
How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. However, when you format your hard drive with super eraser for mac, all your data will be permanently lost. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another. Erasing a disk or volume permanently deletes all of its files. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater.