You can follow the question or vote as helpful, but you cannot reply to this thread. Mar 12, 2018 mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdos is the formatting option for pc. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Connect the usb or external hard drive to your mac computer. And we usually perform formatting in our usb or external hard drive when we want to get rid of viruses, or we want to clean the disk as it was when we purchased it. Formatting hard drive windows image from shutterstock. How to write to an external hard drive on mac os x.
Therfore, you can connect backup plus desktop to a windows pc without formatting the hard drive. Launch my computer and choose format after you have connected the external hard drive, launch my computer and you would be able to see the list of drives on the left side of the window or in the main window. Select the formatted hard drive location for recovery after selecting the recovery scenario, you need to specify the location for scan. Unformat mac hard drive recover formatted hard drive on. Select your drive in the lefthand sidebar and go to the erase tab. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. If it does not you will need to rightclick and delete the volume first. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. How to format seagate external hard drive for both mac. The best partition scheme for a drive that will be used for both mac and windows is to format it exfat, and its actually easier to do it in windows than on the mac side. How to format an external hard drive on windows formatting a hard drive on windows is a simple affair, especially if you leave everything as default.
In the sidebar, select the disk you want to format to use with windows computers. Apr 23, 2014 its a good idea to backup your data for your mac using time machine. If your drive is already formatted for mac os x, it is immediately enabled for writing. You just need to run awecleaner on your mac, click disk manager, and select the hard drive to format. Video showing how to format drive for mac and windows computers. When i modify a file and put it into an external hard drive, date modified section does not change. I dont like automatic backups because i need to access the only specific files from an external hard drive. Seagate backup plus desktop user manual optional formatting. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. Windowsformatted hard drives have either ntfs file system of an fat32 file system. But compared with formatting, an ntfs for mac driver like iboysoft ntfs for mac is a better and feasible solution. The samsung ssd comes with exfat format by default.
But using a third party all the time for accessing a hard drive on windows is not good. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows its good to have an external hard drive which can be used for backup and other purpose. It offers easy format option to help mac users to format a hard drive or external device under mac os. Click the format popup menu, then choose one of the following. You have to set it up correctly before getting starting. Macos extended if you primarily use mac with a secondary exfat partition, or. Select ntfs for the file system type and check the quick format checkbox. Now, launch the disk utility from the application utilities option. You can try the following steps to format usb or external hard drive for mac with disk utility on mac. How to format an external hard drive the easy way in 2020. Securely format external hard drive on windows and mac with super eraser. A user has to know how to convert mac formatted hard drive to windows formatted. Launch easeus mac data recovery software, and select the disk location and click scan. Most of the ssds come in default exfat format that is compatible with both windows and mac.
I cant find the method to format my external hard drive in the windows 8 tile set up. 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. Press the win key, type disk management and select create and format hard disk partitions. Unformat mac hard drive recover formatted hard drive on mac. Installing your lacie hard drive is easy thanks to lacie setup assistant.
A hard disk drive will take longer to format than a flash drive. Thats all because its been initialized with windows nt file system ntfs, which is primarily for pcs. The icobra usb key is not being recognized by the iphone or ipad, and writing on the. Accessing mac formatted wd hard drive from pc external. Feb 08, 2020 so, you just bought an external hard drive or a portable ssd and wanted to use it on your mac. Also when we buy a new usb or hard drive, it often comes with windows compatible not the mac so formatting it even needed in this case. Follow these instructions if you plan to share an external hard drive between pc and mac computers. To connect to the mac from the pc, if set correctly the mac will show up in the. Before digging in, select a primary format youll use the most.
But to get a hard drive to be compatible with both mac and pc, you have to choose the exfat. The following steps will help you to understand how to format pen drive in mac. Your old external windows pc drive will work great on the mac. You can then rightclick in the empty space and select new simple volume to create a partition and format it with the windows ntfs or fat32 file systems. How to format external hard drive for mac and pc iskysoft. Select external hard drive, click on erase to format the external hard drive. The real issue is deciding on a disk format that both oses are friendly with.
To sum up, it is easy to format an external hard drive for both mac and windows pc. The following tutorials will teach users how to format an external hard drive for both mac and pc to exfat on mac osx and windows 10. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Jan 30, 2009 i dont like automatic backups because i need to access the only specific files from an external hard drive.
Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on mac. Both mac os x and windows allow users to format their hard drives using builtin utilities. Dec 05, 2019 but using a third party all the time for accessing a hard drive on windows is not good. Hi, i am trying to access my wd hard drive which i have been using on my mac from my pc.
Also when we buy a new usb or hard drive, it often comes with windows compatible not the mac so formatting it. Launch the disk utility by clicking applications utilities. But to get a hard drive to be compatible with both mac and pc. Format external hard drive or usb drive for mac easeus. It seems they formatted the drive to the mac format, but i have no way to access the data, at least i think.
Awecleaner is the comprehensive mac cleaning software. If you are using an external hard drive, or even an sd card or a usb stick, make sure that it is properly connected to your computer via the appropriate port. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step. But somehow, macos doesnt allow you to write data to the drive. When trying to copy files to the drive you may get prompted to do a disk clean up but this will not. Jan 04, 20 i cant find the method to format my external hard drive in the windows 8 tile set up. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. If you want to format your external hard drive to work with mac and windows computers, you should use exfat. This software will scan your external hard drive and display the scanning results on the left pane. I usually use a firewire that connects into the hard drive in two places. With exfat, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years. Using them with the mac is problematic when they have the same name. In windows 8, you can choose the this pc tile from the start screen.
Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdos is the formatting option for pc. How to format toshiba harddrive for mac apple community. Open finder and go to applicationsutilities and doubleclick on disk utility. Time machine, for example, tries to back up to the external drive with this name. Rightclick on the windows icon in the lower lefthand corner. Once you have made sure of this, go to applications then utilities. So, you just bought an external hard drive or a portable ssd and wanted to use it on your mac. Exfat is an upgraded version for the fat32 file system that limits the maximum file size to 4gb. If you work on a mac computer and need to read or write files from hdd, ssd or a flash drive formatted under windows, you need microsoft ntfs for mac by.
This is a normal request when formatting a disk or installing certain software, such as. How to erase and format a hard drive lifehacker australia. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. How to format external hard drivedisk on mac using disk utility. What disk utility looks like in lion through yosemite. How to reformat mac external harddrive for pc march 2014. Accessing mac formatted external hd from windows pc. Using this hard drive is very simple on windows operating systems you merely plug in the power cord and usb 3. Ntfs format hard disks can be connected to mac os but the drive will run with readonly permission which means you can only copy from hard disk but cant add or. Learning how to format an external drive on mac is necessary for numerous reasons. If this isnt a systemapplication drive and its just a drive for content like documents and media, you can format the external drive as exfat to have native readwrite support from both windows and os x with no third party software needed. The drive was originally used on a windows machine.
Please, backup any data you are interested in keeping which is already. May 21, 2020 by this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for mac and pc without losing any data. Want to format a hard drive for mac and pc compatibility. It means that the user needs to ensure that the programs or the software mentioned in this part are the ones which will get the work done for the user easily. The drive will now be formatted for use by windows systems. I have just saved necessary files and also the installer for os x 10. May 14, 2015 macs can easily read pcformatted hard disk drives. This is enough to work the ssd as a backup drive for mac. Its good to have an external hard drive which can be used for backup and other purpose. Finally, when all preferences are set, click the erase button. The formatted files erased by disk utility also can be recovered by free mac data recovery software. There are tens of thousands of products that can be used to get the work done easily when it comes to subjected question. It is a quick way to format external hard drive on mac. The best external hard drives for mac in 2020 pcmag.
Apple mac machines support a different file system. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac. Convert formatted drive from mac to windows info remo. However, if you want to convert ntfs to exfat to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc, 3 steps are required. How to format external hard drive on mac recoverit. Apple has built os x yosemite and some previous os x releases with the ability to read from those disks just fine. Mar 31, 2020 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.
How to write to an external hard drive on mac os x wikihow. In finder, just change the name of the drive like you would any folder. How to format the wifi hdd to use with both mac and windows. The easiest way to do that is hit cmd and the spacebar at the same time and type in disk utility to find the program.
Formatting an external hard drive for macwindows use. Te lights are on on the wd and i can unmount it, but cannot find it anywhere where i can access and copy files over. How to format a hard drive for both windows and 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. How to format external ssd for mac time machine mashtips. If youve just inserted a new hard drive, it should be listed. You do not want to format the drive though for mac.
How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. If the external hard drive is pre formatted for mac, disk management will list 3 partitions and you will not be able to delete the health efi system partition because its a protected partition. 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. I had information from a broken mac backed up at best buy, but because my mac broke, now i only have a windows computer.
There will be no space wasted by protected mac partitions. Allowing third party applications to install on a macbook. If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. Lacie porsche design mobile drive user manual getting connected. If you are a windows user, formatting an external hard drive on your windows is as easy. Nov 21, 2017 and we usually perform formatting in our usb or external hard drive when we want to get rid of viruses, or we want to clean the disk as it was when we purchased it. If you really fancy a drive formatted for windows which will usually come preformatted in the ntfs format, you can use the disk utility in macos to reformat it after. How to format a windows disk drive for a mac seagate blog.
Now, im trying to format it so that i can use it on pc instead of mac. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. 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. Rightclick in the unallocated space on the initialized disk and select new simple volume. Be sure you selected the correct drive icon for the my passport external drive. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. The windows system uses a hard drive with a different file system than the mac systems. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and. If your formatted hard drive is an internal drive on windows or mac, you need to select deleted files recovery to recover all files. Depending on how the drive is currently formatted, and whether or not you want to reformat it, you have a few possible options. Its the most secure, robust file system that a windows user could wish for. All you need to do is to open your mac and insert the usb flash drive n one of the ports.
Select the external hard drive on the lefthand side. Step 2 on the left side of the utilities screen, find the name of the external hard drive you want to format and select it. Most or we can say almost every external hard disk comes in ntfs windows nt file system format but ntfs format is not supported by mac os. Then proceed to highlight your computers hard drive. Now that you know which format to use, check out our guide on how to format your hard drive on. Easily format external hard drive on windows or mac. Step 1 connect the external hard drive you want to format to your mac, then start the disk utility app that you can find under applications utilities. I have 2 external hard drives supplied by the same vendor. Rightclick on the external hard drive in the volume tab. 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.
In windows 7, this can be done by clicking the start button and choosing. However, this is one of the many reasons why you should know how to format the drive for both mac and windows operating systems. The formatting process duration depends on size and type of the drive. Use the wizard to create a partition with the ntfs or fat32 file system. Windows offers users builtin disk management tool to create, delete, resize, merge and format partitions. Then, you can share external hard drive between mac and pc. One of them is that you might purchase a new usb flash drive which is preformatted for windows os and you will be unable to use it on your mac. Well show you everything you need to know about the. How do you share a hard drive between a mac and a pc. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. Now, how can i reformat and install os x from the installer placed in the external hard drive. Writing to an external hard drive using max os x can sometimes be more complicated than one would assume.
To get a clearer picture of things, go to the disk management utility in windows. Change the partition layout from current to 1 partition. In windows just right click on the drive and select format. Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard drive. Any hard drive can be formatted for mac and here is how you do it. I would like to simply change the name of one of these external hard drives. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. Here youll see all the hard drives internal and external connected to your pc. Its a good idea to backup your data for your mac using time machine. Format new external drive as an ntfs partition it services. How to format an external hard drive for mac youtube. This means its the format of choice for system drives on windows computers. How do i format an external hard drive in windows 8.
Trying to access from pc via usb cable with only one access point in wd hard drive, but it doesnt show up on the pc. I got a seagate external hard drive so i can back up my first laptop which runs on windows vista yes, i know its the worst operating system but its a long story as to why i am still using it. Windows formatted hard drives have either ntfs file system of an fat32 file system. I have backed up all my data i dont have enough hard drive space to make a time machine backup.
Ntfs has quite a lot of strong advantages, which may actually make it a good format choice for certain external hard drives, depending on the circumstances. The ssd will work for both windows and mac out of the box. Format new external drive as an ntfs partition it services nmu. I am planning to get a macbook next month and would like to eventually back that up onto the drive as well. Choose this format if the size of the disk is 32 gb or less. How can i reformat the internal drive and install mountain. Right click on the drive icon for the external drive and choose format from the menu. How to format a hard drive in windows 10 make tech easier. Formatting an external hard drive will remove all the data already present on it. How to use mac formatted external hard drive on windows. For the time machine, you have to format the ssd from the default shipped format. Click the scheme popup menu, then choose master boot record.
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