How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. To format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format. Both fat32 and exfat can be used on windows pc and mac. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. How to format seagate drive for mac and pc quickly and. Formatting a disk or volume erases all the files on it. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. External data storage devices such as usb flash drives, external hard disk drives hdds, and solid state drives ssds provide one of the easiest ways to transfer files between separate computers without accessing the. Better still, it can be read from and written to on any mac running mac os x snow leopard or later and on windows. It is a dedicated system utility tool that stores all the vital details and parameters related to windows settings.
Cant access mac hard drive on windows 10 microsoft. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. It is recommended to use ntfs if youre working strictly with windows computers. In the main interface, right click the partition on that need.
Click the link below to download the 5 day free trial of a great utility macdrive install that, then restart your pc, start the utility and connect the drive, you will then have access to that mac drive like any other pc hard drive. On windows 10, the ability to format a usb flash drive can come in handy in a number of scenarios. Paragon disk wipe allows you to create a bootable usb flash drive or external hard drive that will help you to completely erase a whole hard disk, a separate partition or just clean free space. 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. How to format a flash drive to work on os x and windows. Hard drive format software for mac mac disk format software. Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on mac. For example, in windows xp my computer is equivalent to this pc on windows 10. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. Download the windows 7 usb dvd download tool to format the hard disk now and install windows 7 later or the windows 10 media creation tool to format the hard drive now and install windows 10 later. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Select the external hard drive on the lefthand side. How to choose the best format for usb drive on windowsmac. Follow these next steps to create one skip to step 2 if youve got a dvd already.
Rather than use a mac formatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exfatformatted drives for moving data between macs and pcs. Follow the instructions to create a bootable usb drive. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. As a comprehensive data erasure tool, aweeraser for mac can help you securely and permanently format a hard drive or device under mac os. Windows formatted hard drives have either ntfs file system of an fat32 file system. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. The windows system uses a hard drive with a different file system than the mac systems.
To format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. It is the reliable disk formatting tool for windows mac. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. Create a windows installation disk and boot your pc from it.
Seagate backup plus slim, especially for largecapacity removable storage devices. If it does not you will need to rightclick and delete the volume first. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. 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. Now, lets take a look at some ways you can format your usb drive on windows 10. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it.
How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac cnet. Here are two outstanding mac hard drive format software tools you can rely on. How to format internal andor external drive to work properly on mac and windows computers. Im here to use a windows 10 based hp laptop to format my lexar drive. This wikihow teaches you how to change an external usb hard drives format on windows and mac computers. Thus in order to make the hard drive windows formatted, you have to convert the file system to ntfs or fat32. In disk utility on your mac, you can format an external disk for a windows computer.
Connect the power supply if necessary, connect to the mac via usb or firewire, and turn on the drive. I know mac operating system doesnt fully supports ntfs formatted drive. The first technique to format write protected usb drive is by using the registry editor on windows. As mentioned before, macs can only read ntfsformatted hard drives by. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. 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 to share a usb drive between a mac and a windows pc, there are two disk formats to choose from. This works with any hard drive, flash drive, ssd, usb drive, or just about any other.
Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdos is the formatting option for pc. Step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. Windows cannot natively access a mac formatted drive. If you are techy and use windows and mac computers frequently, then you might need to transfer data between mac and pc. Under file system box, select exfat for this drive. You can format the external hard drive or usb drive to make it compatible with both mac and windows machines. 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. Formatted external hard drive without backup and want to recover the data. Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. Plug in the external hard drive into the system and open windows explorer by clicking on the computer section in the side bar, you will see your external hard drive get attached to your system. If you are on an earlier operating system like windows 7, xp, etc. But to get a hard drive to be compatible with both mac and pc, you have to choose the.
This thing is still unknown for many users but doesnt worry its not complex. 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. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. All data has to be put in a file format that the operating system can read off the hard drive. In the file system list box, choose exfat, type in a. Formatting a hard drive can change the file system to make it compatible with your computers operating system, as well as fix any nonphysical errors on the drive itself. Go to applicationsutilities and launch disk utility. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Convert formatted drive from mac to windows info remo. Choose the exfat file system in the list and click start. To learn how to format write protected usb drive via the registry editor, follow these steps. I have purchased a 1tb portable external seagate hard drive and i would like to use it with both my mac and windows computer. Set up your drive following the manufacturers instructions.
Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar. How to format a hard drive on windows or mac avast. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and. Click on the usb drive in the sidebar in disk utility. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. Rightclick your flash drive and then select format. Both mac os x and windows allow users to format their hard drives using builtin utilities. Other than using the thirdparty tool, you can also format your hard drive from usb with the help of windows installation disk, which, as you will know, is relatively more complicated than using a bootable format tool as shown in method 1 step 1. Most accessory manufacturers tend to build accessories for the more dominant platforms, which is why many computer peripherals tend to be more focused on.
Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step. Plug in your external hdd to the usb port of your computer then go to my computer find your external drive rightclick it and select format. The extended file system ext was the first file system created specifically for linux. How to format hard drives on windows, mac and linux.
Guide how to format hard drive from usb with bootable. How to format a usb flash drive on windows 10 windows. Change the partition layout from current to 1 partition. Now that we know the good and bad about every file system, let see how to format a drive in windows, mac, and linux. Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility.
Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. However, fat32 has a maximum 4gb file size limit whereas exfat can work with. 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 an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. Rightclick on the drive you want to format, click on format. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac apple. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. How to format usb drives on windows 10 make tech easier. This is the easiest way and simply requires you to plug in your usb drive, open the windows file explorer and right click your drive to view a number of actions that you can perform. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility. Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard drive.