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