Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. Then you can choose one of the hard drive and format it by click on format button. The operating system has an inbuilt tool, which is known as disk utility. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Formatting a disk or volume erases all the files on it. Connect your external hard drive to your windows 10 pc.
In this guide, we show you virtually every method to format a usb flash drive and quickly erase its contents or fix data corruption and other issues using windows 10s builtin tools. Well then, how to format an external hard drive to exfat with windows pc. Mac can read all the file system formats including windows. Click the erase button click the scheme popup menu, then choose master boot record. When you plug a drive thats been formatted for mac into a windows pc, you may find that it isnt readable. This will erase all contents on the disk, however, so youll need to transfer those files to a safe place first. After recovering the files from your drive with one of the tools above, you can then format the drive and convert it to a standard fat32 partition that will work with most devices. On mac computers, use the finder app to browse and manage files on your computer and external hard drives. Dec 30, 2018 or format the mac drive for windows if you have a mac drive lying around and you no longer have a mac, youre not stuck with the mac file system forever. I understand that you are facing issues with windows 10. Fortunately, there are some mac hard drive format software or smart disk formatting applications can help you securely and easily format, reformat, or erase hard drive under mac os. In the disk utility app on your mac, choose view show all devices in the sidebar, select the disk you want to format to use with windows computers. Mar 03, 2020 as you can see, exfat is the only file system that works with all versions of windows and macos and does not have any max filesize or partitionsize limits. To readwrite format ntfs from mac os x, here are some alternatives.
Jan 17, 2019 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 on windows 10. 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. Sep 26, 2018 windows pc and mac use different filesystems. You can do that by typing disk format or disk management in windows search or going to control panel administrative tools. Go to the applications folder on your macs hard drive, then go to the utilities folder, and launch disk utility. Click the format popup menu, then choose one of the following.
Dec 29, 2015 how to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Plug your hd into the mac and open disk utility, which can be accessed by searching for it in spotlight. Disk utility in macos high sierra or later can erase most disks and volumes for mac using either the newer apfs apple file system format or the older mac os extended format, and it automatically chooses a compatible format for you. Format an sd card on mac first, make sure your sd card is connected. Oct 28, 2019 so how we can format ann sd card correctly on man and windows. Under windows 2000 and higher, we dont use the aspi layer any more, but a service launched under the local system. Macdisk is an utility for reading, writing and formatting apple macintosh magnetic media on an ibm compatible pc, without any hardware modification of the computer and without any addon. How to choose the best format for usb drive on windowsmaclinux. Well show you everything you need to know about the.
Here we take an example of formatting external hard drive to exfat in a windows 10 pc. Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility. Rightclick on windows icon, select disk management. Read mac formatted drives with windows the tech guy. Format your western digital my passport external hard drive to fat32 or exfat format so to transfer the data between a mac and windows. Launch disk utility from the launch pad on mac or find disk utility from finder. How to open mac format usb devce in windows youtube. In the sidebar, select the disk you want to format to use with. How to format a disk or drive in windows 10 format is the process of preparing a data storage device such as a hard disk drive, solidstate drive, or usb flash drive for initial use to accept windows files. Dont click the format disk button or windows will erase the contents of the driveclick cancel. Therefore, its perfect for a usb flash drive or external disk, especially when you need to save files more than 4gb in size.
One simple way to make the drive readable on both platforms is to format it to exfat, which both operating systems can understand. Open the disk management tool by rightclicking this pc manage disk management. You can do that by typing disk format or disk management in windows search or going to control panel administrative tools create. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. How to format hard drive and fix disk format errors on mac. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. Mac can read all the file system formats including windows msdos, fat, fat32. I cant format a drive on windows 10 microsoft community. Just dont click format or else all the contents of the drive will be gone once. In the disk utility app on your mac, choose view show all devices. Simple and easy to use, macdrive is recognized as the leader for accessing mac disks from windows for almost 20 years.
If you are using a mac, you can run the builtin disk utility to quickly format a hard drive or external hard drive under mac os. 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 share an external hard drive between mac and windows. Here are two outstanding mac hard drive format software. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Unlike windows os, mac os doesnt provide quick format tool. If you have already joined the data loss club unwillingly, then try running diy applications to recover data from mac and windows. For windows, it offers quick format feature when you rightclick the hard drive on the computer. Format external hard drive with windows builtin tool. You will learn how to format the external hard disk which has deafult ntfs format, to make it compatible with mac os. Disk utility is a utility application proprietary to macos that is used to both format and manage internal and external disks. 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 on windows 10. Both fat32 and exfat can be used on windows pc and mac.
If you want to format a hard drive or usb flash drive on your computer, disk formatting tool is the best choice. 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. How to format a flash drive for mac and pc compatibility in. How to format new hard drive on windows 10 windows central. Insert the flash drive or hard drive you want to format for windows compatibility. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. After choosing the best format for usb drive according to your needs, you might start to wonder. The disk manager tool is able to list all hard drives and external devices on your mac. Format external hard disk drive for mac os and windows. Nov, 2019 format hard drive in windows 10 with easeus management software. Go to the applications folder on your mac s hard drive, then go to the utilities folder, and launch disk utility.
In the sidebar, select the disk you want to format to use with windows computers. Macdisk is a 32bit application and runs under all recent versions of windows vista and 78 included, even 64 bits. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods revealed. Aug 22, 2019 just like windows, macos also gives us a seamless option to format hard drive for mac and pc. Apr 17, 2020 to format external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. If you want to use the drive between a windows and mac machine, you can format it to fat32. The latter requires to you to use a command line interface, while the former uses a graphical user interface. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. How to format a windows disk drive for a mac seagate blog. 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. Macs may also create a protected efi partition on these drives that you cant delete with the usual diskpartitioning tools.
Select the mac drive from the list of drives make sure this is the drive you want to work on, if you do it for the windows formatted drive in the list, it may cost you a lot of important data. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. You can use this format if you share the drive between mac os x and windows computers and have no. In disk utility on your mac, you can format an external disk for a windows computer. Hard drive format software for mac mac disk format software. Apr 14, 2020 there are 3 solutions for this case, so please choose the one you like most to format external hard drive windows 1087. If there are any files you want to keep that are on the disc, be sure to copy them to your hard drive. Dec 05, 2019 rightclick on windows icon, select disk management. How to format internal andor external drive to work properly on mac and windows computers. Convert formatted drive from mac to windows info remo. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac.
How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. 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 access mac osx extended formatted hard drive in windows. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Mac is obviously a very much different operating system from windows, let alone their features and steps to format a hard drive. This will erase all contents on the disk, however, so youll need to. Format hard drive in windows 10 with easeus management software. 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 internet.
Connect the hdd to a mac and format the drive as fat32 and then connect the same mac hdd to windows and convert it to ntfs. How to read a macformatted drive on a windows pc safe. How to format new or second hard drive on windows 10mac. Therefore, it is necessary to present a tutorial guide here to format or partition a hard drive within mac os. How to format a windows disk drive for a mac i get this question a lot i have an external hard drive that is ntfs formatted windows format, and i want to reformat it for my mac hfs. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. How to choose the best format for usb drive on windowsmac. Both windows and mac os offer builtin disk formatting tool. 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.
Since users are unable to create a fat32 partition larger than 32gb in windows disk management, they need to use minitool partition wizard free. Enter a name for the disk or volume, such as macintosh hd. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Right click on the partition and select delete volume this will remove the partition. Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard drive. Choose this format if the size of the disk is 32 gb or less. 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. This also allows you to restore time machine backups on windows. In the main interface, right click the partition on that need. In this article, we will introduce 5 disk formatting tools for windows and mac to help you securely format hard driveusb flash drive or memory card on a pc or a mac. But luckily, there are file systems well supported by both mac and windows pc, and they are fat32 it might be called msdos on mac and exfat.
How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. When you connect a mac formatted drive to windows, youll be informed that you need to format the disk in drive x. If you are formatting a local disk, you should use ntfs in place of exfat, or you can choose from other appropriate file systems such as fat32. If you want to know exactly how to format a dvdrw on mac so that you can reuse it for other data, here is what to do. Download disk formatting software for mac doyourdata. Just like windows, macos also gives us a seamless option to format hard drive for mac and pc.
This version allows you to fully test the application engine, the disk access routines and the graphical interface under windows. Downloading center solutions for macpc data and file. Diskpart windows 10 command line type format fsexfat labeldrive label here quick then hit enter this command will format and label the drive, e. Jun 30, 2018 you will learn how to format the external hard disk which has deafult ntfs format, to make it compatible with mac os. Some drives are even sold as mac formatted drives this just means they come with the. One thing you should keep in mind while dealing with this kind of scenario is that when you connect your mac formatted drive to windows, you will be informed to erase it with notification you need to format the disk in drive x.
The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple. Easeus partition software is a popular disk partition management tool that is available for all hard disk related jobs such as format disk partition, extend system partition, settle low disk space problem, convert mbr to gpt without data loss and vice versa. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac. Click the scheme popup menu, then choose master boot record. Windows cant normally read macformatted drives, and will offer to erase them instead. In the disk management, youll see your external hard drive as partition or unallocated space. This post will teach you how to format your macs hard disk and fix common errors. Click the erase button or tab, then complete these fields. Both mac os x and windows allow users to format their hard drives using builtin utilities. 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. You can select to use a fat, fat32, exfat, ntfs, or refs file system when formatting.
You will learn the easiest way to format drive on mac and windows as exfat. Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. Then, select your hard drive from the left sidebar. Find out how to format an external drive or usb disk making the drive work with both windows pc and mac can read and write. Mar 15, 2018 when you connect a macformatted drive to windows, youll be informed that you need to format the disk in drive x. Macs may also create a protected efi partition on these drives that you cant delete with the usual disk partitioning tools. External hard drives use either spinning disks or solid memory to save your files. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Choose either apfs or mac os extended journaled to format as a mac volume. Mar 10, 2020 how to format hard drive and fix disk format errors on your mac errors can damage your hard disk and prevent it from functioning properly. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. Using it, you can erase a hard drive, create new partitions, and even repair your disk as well.
590 1054 996 1546 382 80 834 1281 1189 1575 842 222 542 768 715 1214 1087 44 486 1262 712 1544 83 1221 1444 485 166 1569 50 1494 50 474 1199 242 1410 126 20 209 486 1491 894 1052