The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac cnet. Open disk management, the hard drive manager included with all versions of windows. Then proceed to highlight your computers hard drive. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. For earlier versions of the mac operating system, screens may be slightly different. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. For windows, it offers quick format feature when you rightclick the hard drive on the computer. Want to format a hard drive for mac and pc compatibility. Most external hard drives hd are sold in a format called ntfs, which is designed to work with 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. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. Different os has different default file system, and windows default file system is ntfs, os x nfs plus, and linux ext family. Fat32 is the crossplatform format for windows and mac os x.
How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. You can also buy a program called mac drive that lets windows computers read mac format at hfs plus drives. Reformatting the drive will erase all data on the drive, so you should copy any data you want off the drive prior to formatting. How can i format this drive in windows 7 home premium. Verify that the correct hard drive is selected in the left column. One simple way to make the drive readable on both platforms is to format it to exfat, which both operating systems can understand. How to format external ssd for mac time machine mashtips. Check the format this volume with the following settings box, then click the file system box and select one of the following. Macyourself blog archive how to format a drive for mac and pc. Mac os x installation basics sata drive seagate support us. The following is based on the latest version of macos. Unformat mac hard drive recover formatted hard drive on.
Instructions for how to format your external drive so that it will be fully usable in macos. It is recommended to choose the compatible format that the system lists. Select the volume format from the volume format popup. To format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format. Has a storage limit of 32 gigabytes with an individual file size of 4 gigabytes. A new hard drive has to be formatted with some specific file systems before being used in windows 7 operating system os. If a wireless network is available, you can choose it from the wi. If you have a certificate for the encrypted efs hard drive partition, you can access data in the hard drive with ease. If you are using a mac, you can run the builtin disk utility to quickly format a hard drive or external hard. And you can be confident that apple hasnt changed the way you format an external drive on a mac. How to format internal andor external drive to work properly on mac and windows computers. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. All data has to be put in a file format that the operating system can read off the hard 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. Install, boot, and run mac os x from an external hard drive. You have to set it up correctly before getting starting. The format apple support for mac owners for time machine is mac os extended journaled. The easiest way to format the drive for mac is by using macoss builtin disk utility for fat32 or exfat. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. All options, including format, is greyed out except to delete volume. What disk utility looks like in lion through yosemite. Format a drive for mac os x and windows video cnet. Both windows and mac os offer builtin disk formatting tool. Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard drive. But when some day you try to install windows in bootcamp partition you will start searching for ways and no one will works for your computer.
When you do that, you should see at least four icons. Read mac formatted drives with windows the tech guy. Note that exfat is only compatible with versions of windows later than vista. The easiest way to format the drive to fat32 or exfat is by using macoss built in disk utility. But somehow, macos doesnt allow you to write data to the drive. Once the set up is complete, mount your drive and it will be visible on file explorer.
Apple mac machines support a different file system. About how to format external hard drives for both macs and windows pcs, and what is the best format for using usb external drives on mac. You just need to mount your disk and access all of your files. This will erase all contents on the disk, however, so. How to erase a disk for mac use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. When you plug a drive thats been formatted for mac into a windows pc, you may find that it isnt readable.
Luckily, there are thirdparty tools to help you do so. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar. Since mac os x and windows use totally different file systems, the way a. Thats all because its been initialized with windows nt file system ntfs, which is primarily for pcs. Formatieren einer festplatte fur windowscomputer mit dem. The usb drivers come with the fat format by default. A window will pop up where you can choose the format ntfs, fat32, or exfat.
You can format a hard drive or usb flash disk specifically so that it will be. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. How to reinstall macos from macos recovery apple support. Additional information how to format a hard drive for mac. This is the message i get while trying to format the hd. Install a windows 7 partition on mac osx without optical. To use it, download hfs for windows here and install on your pc. If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. Then your hard drivemac computerdevice is able to reuse, resold, recycled or can be safely donated or lent to other people.
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. Immediately after the startup sound, press and hold the c key to start up from cd. It just securely formats your mac hard drivedevice and permanently erases all the data. The format is good for handling the files between both os under 4gb size. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. Under file system, choose the file system you want to use. And apfs takes the advantages of strong encryption, space sharing, disk snapshots and is compatible with ssd on new mac. Opening disk management can be done a number of ways depending on your version of windows, but the easiest method is to type diskmgmt. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. A western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac osx. For mac, the mac os extension is the file system included in mac os 10. These are instructions on how to format a hard drive using mac os x disk utility. How to format an external drive to work seamlessly with macs.
Quit any disk utilities or other programs that are using this drive, and make sure that no window is displaying the contents of the drive. Your internal macintosh drive is also formatted in this format. Rather than use a macformatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exfatformatted drives for moving data between macs and pcs. Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on mac. Although it is possible to format a drive as exfat from disk utility on. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. If you wish to boot the drive on a pc or use it with older versions of windows, you may also need to set the partition scheme to master boot record mbr for full windows compatibility. Select your drive from the list and rightclick on it. With the drive selected in disk utility, click partition. Format a hard drive using mac os x disk utility iclarified. Mavericks many of us had extended the life of our old mac computers replacing the optical drive with an ssd. So, you just bought an external hard drive or a portable ssd and wanted to use it on your mac. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step. Learn how to use macos recovery to reinstall the mac operating system on your builtin drive or an external drive.
Hard drive format software for mac mac disk format software. How to access mac osx hard drive from windows 7 computer. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. Step one if your hard drive is an external drive, connect it to the computer. For most reasons to erase, including when reformatting a disk or selling, giving away, or trading in your mac, you should erase your entire disk.
How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. Yes, connecting an external hard drive or usb flash key to a mac will generally read and work fine as is because the mac can easily read other filesystem formats, including windows msdos, fat, fat32, exfat, and ntfs formats, but unless you intend on using the drive between a windows and mac machine, formatting it to be entirely mac compatible. Recover data from encrypted hard drive in windows 1087. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. Here are two ways to decrypt the hdd in windows os and one way to decrypt mac os. Select your preferred values from the file system and allocation unit size dropdown menus. Both mac os x and windows allow users to format their hard drives using builtin utilities. Place a checkmark next to perform a quick format, then click on ok. Formatting windows 7 hard drive will erase all the data on the drive and rebuild a file system. Make sure the allocation unit size is set to default and type in a volume label. Whether you have mac os sierra, high sierra or mojave the way you format your wd elements drive for mac is the same. Here below are detailed steps about how to decrypt efs encrypted hard drive partition in windows 1087.
In my case, i have five because i have windows installed using boot camp. As the default file system in windows, it can only read by mac os, writing to it is not available. Once he left i removed the hard drive from the external hard drive enclosure and needed to find a way to access the data from my windows 7 ultimate 64bit laptop to verify the hard drive was functioning as expected. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. Follow these easy steps to format a hard drive in windows 10, windows 8, windows 7, windows vista, or windows xp.
These steps can be used for both internal and external drives. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. Connect your hard drive or external hard drive to your mac. How to format a hard drive using the command prompt tom.
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