Find the external hard drive under external and then click partition on the top menu of the right panel. Trouble formatting external hard drive macrumors forums. I would really like to know what the best solution is in formatting external hard drives to run on my. The only downside is that you probably cant boot a mac from a pc formatted drive not absolutely positive about that. Apfs apple file system is only for newer macs running macos. Its a good idea to backup your data for your mac using time machine. In the format column, choose fat or exfat files system. Apr 23, 2014 its a good idea to backup your data for your mac using time machine. Sep 19, 2014 she has a mac mini and a wd passport external hard drive. Afer seeing the 2 demonstrations above, you may find that it is so easy to format hard drive windows 10 with the two drive formatting software utility. How to remove read only on mac external hard drive without formatting updated on april 4, 2020. How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. 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.
Launch easeus mac data recovery software, and select the disk location and click scan. Be sure to back up any data you want to save before you begin. Easily format external hard driveusb under macos 10. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing. If youre not sure, eject and disconnect each drive, then only. Should you need this external hard drive to backup your mac with time machine, checkout my blog post about how to backup your mac with. How to get an external drive formally used with a mac to.
Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. Formatting an external hard drive in ext4 from my mac. Oct 22, 2018 formatting a hard disk drive hdd in an external hard drive enclosure is done the same way like an internal drive. 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. This is true, but because the drive is formatted for cross platform compatibility, some stability and.
Formatting an external hard disk ashland mac users group. Simply connect the external drive via thunderbolt, usb, firewire or esata to your computer, turn on the power and then use the native disk. Jan 12, 20 any external hard drive will work with pcs or macs, as long as the connectors are there firewire, usb, etc. This is the hard disk itself, and this is a volume on it there can be more than one, but normally when you buy a hard disk there is only one. A pc however cant read a mac formatted drive unless you get special third party software such as macdrive. Ablegrid 12v acdc adapter for seagate 1tb external hard disk drive hdd hd pn 9sf2a4500 9sf2a4500 12vdc 1. Formatting is a very simple procedure which is operated in a similar way for all sorts of storage media. I would suggest you to take the backup of all the files present in the external hard drive in the mac computer and then connect it to windows 7 and format the drive and choose ntfs format and check if the issue is fixed. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar. Or perhaps you are setting up an external drive for backups.
How do you access a faulty hard drive without formatting it. Confirm the creation and wait for disk utility to finish. When the disk utility recognizes it the drive is read only. How to format a hard drive for mac internal, external or. This tool can make it really easy to create a bootable usb drive. Also, know what format the drive you are purchasing uses, ntfs or fat32. 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. Youll want to do it before you sell your machine, for sure, but its also one of the steps you take when you. Its good to have an external hard drive which can be used for backup and other purpose. The disk utility gives no options for formatting under the erase. 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.
The disk utility will automatically begin to format the external hard drive for mac and pc. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. This menu item is in the upperleft side of the screen. A pc formatted drive has the best compatibility to both macs and pcs for basic file transfer. On the dropdown box, select the format labeled exfat. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. The hard drive will primarily be used on my macbook pro and occasionally on a pc. If you have messed with the partitions you will probably have to erase the drive and recreate the partitions. Disk wont format external drives for mac wd community. The duration of the process is based on the external drives total storage and rpm. How to recover data from external hard drive on mac with easeus data recovery wizard. Select the external hard drive on the lefthand side. I am planning to get a macbook next month and would like to eventually back that up onto the drive as well. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac.
However, if you want to convert ntfs to exfat to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc, 3 steps are required. Heres how to format a drive using a mac including how to format a drive for windows and mac so the. I have been trying to walk her through reformatting it but nothing is working. By following the steps in this post, i learned how to format hard drive with the userfriendly partition manager minitool partition wizard free edition. Then, you can share external hard drive between mac and pc. Format external hard drive or usb drive for mac easeus. And it currently only works on ssds or flash storage. How to get an external drive formally used with a mac to be. Want to format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. 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. While this tutorial will cover the procedure for formatting your system drive, the same applies to formatting a new external drive if you bought one for storage purposes. The two most popular operating systems, windows and mac os both have formatting utilities builtin, which makes formatting external drives even more convenient.
Files were unknowingly hidden somewhere, and you lost the entrance. As mentioned before, macs can only read ntfsformatted hard drives by. Use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive. Your internal macintosh drive is also formatted in this format. Even if your disk comes formatted for mac, it may not work properly for some uses. For some mac models, the partition option would be greyed out in disk utility. If youre erasing an external drive, make sure that its connected directly to your mac using a cable that you know is good.
So, whether you wish to format the internal hard drive, external drive, or a usb flash drive, the procedure is the same for all. Operation failed dont understand the space issue and since the disk is unmounted ii am unable to do. Formatting the hard drive is the only way to properly and completely remove all private data from your mac. Other logical errors occur to the external hard drive, and later it becomes inaccessible.
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. Someday when we are going to resell, donate or throw away our external hard drive, usb drive. How to format an external hard drive for mac youtube. Find desktop and portable external hard drives at best buy for your storage needs. Format hard drive free with two top hard drive format tools. The hard drive is already formatted in mac os extended. Formatting an external hard drive for my apple community. Format hard drive from mac to pc by century mar 25, 2014 7.
Formatting a volume will destroy any data on the partition. Mar 17, 2020 external hard drives enjoy different forms, such as ssd, usb flash drive, sony pen drive and so on, and vary a lot in their capacities from gigabytes to terabytehowever, you may see external usb hard drive not formatted error, saying you need to format the disk before you can use it. External hard drives enjoy different forms, such as ssd, usb flash drive, sony pen drive and so on, and vary a lot in their capacities from gigabytes to terabytehowever, you may see external usb hard drive not formatted error, saying you need to format the disk before you can use it. Any hard drive can be formatted for mac and here is how you do it. So, we suggest that its better to use a pc to partition an external hard drive for macos and windows. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for mac and pc without losing any data. How to format an external hard drive for xbox one minitool. It also allows the users to remain extra cautious so that the issue is never faced in any case.
Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. Well show you everything you need to know about the. After youre done, dont forget to remove the external hard. How to format external hard drive for mac and pc iskysoft. May 21, 2020 by this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for mac and pc without losing any data. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Jan 27, 2019 on the dropdown box, select the format labeled exfat. It doesnt matter how the drive is formatted out of the box, since you can reformat any way you like. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. How to format an external drive to work seamlessly. 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. Jan 02, 2016 how to format an external drive in os x by shujaa imran jan 2, 2016 mac most external drives ship in formats that are universally recognised amongst nearly all operating systems fat, im looking at you, but there may be times where you might want to completely wipe a drive andor set it up to be compatible with apples mac lineup only.
I tried formatting the 2tb to ntfs, but when it does format it with no problems, it becomes read only. Most external hard drives are designed to work for windows computers. If nothing works, use remo mac data recovery software and recover data from it before reformatting the drive. However, with all of the different drive manufacturers, interfaces and other compatibility and formatting issues that hard drives can have, sometimes the best choice is to use specialty. On the utilitys window top, select the option labeled erase. After several minutes of waiting, the process will finish. This software will scan your external hard drive and display the scanning results on the left pane. Any external hard drive will work with pcs or macs, as long as the connectors are there firewire, usb, etc. Your external hard drive is now formatted for your mac. A small drive will take a small amount of time to format and a very large drive will take a very long time to format. Fix you need to format the disk before you can use it. How to reformat mac external harddrive for pc march 2014.
Hi simonboothstudios, i would suggest you to take the backup of all the files present in the external hard drive in the mac computer and then connect it to windows 7 and format the drive and choose ntfs format and check if the issue is fixed note. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. Here are the steps to partition an external hard drive for mac and windows pc, which is a little tricky. Formatting an external hard disk for use with a mac most external hard disks you buy are preformatted for windows msdos fat format. I have another external hard drive thats formatted as ntfs and files stay the way i arrange them.
Format the external hard drive using disk utility or other thirdparty disk formatting tools. Remove write protection from read only mac external hard drive either by editing preference file or using fuse package. The erase option deletes all the data that was in the drive. Only other thread recommended using exfat and that does not work for me as i work with large 4 gb video files. Now, you can follow these two solutions to format any hard drive, flash drive, usb drive, ssd or any other external storage drive so as to make them work on your mac now. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc.
How to format an external hard drive the easy way in 2020. Feb 03, 20 this video will walk you through properly formatting an external hard drive for use with mac os x. If you chose the standard format, which we suggested, the time it takes the drive to format will depend almost completely on the size of the drive. If you setup your drive properly by partitioning the drive with the guid partition map scheme. If your disk or volume still doesnt appear in disk utility, or disk utility reports that the erase process failed, your disk or mac might need service. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. If you want to format a device to change the file system from, say, fat32 to ntfs, one way you can do it while saving your data is to first copy the files off of the drive until its empty. 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. Methods to recover read only external hard drive on mac. Formatting an external hard drive for mac only or pc and mac. Under file system, choose the file system you want to use. In this guide, well show you how to format an external hard drive so you can not only get rid of the. 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.
Formatting can be done with the mac os x disk utility, found in the applicationsutilities folder. How to format an external drive for mac compatibility. This is true, but because the drive is formatted for cross platform compatibility, some stability and facility issues could arise. Ntfs format hard disks can be connected to mac os but the drive will run with read only permission which means you can only copy from hard disk but cant add or. Change the partition layout from current to 1 partition. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. Dec 27, 2019 minitool partition wizard free edition is a reputable allinone disk partition manager, which can help you not only format hard drive windows 10 but also enable users to resize partition, check file system, convert fat to ntfs without data loss, convert mbr to gpt, copy disk, or migrate windows os to an ssd etc. When you purchase a new hard drive for your mac, either sataata internal or firewire external the box that the drive comes in will likely tell you that the drive will run on both macs and pcs. Formatting a hard disk drive hdd in an external hard drive enclosure is done the same way like an internal drive. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. Also, if your current hard drive is more than 5 years old, it probably is nearing the end of its service life and needs to be replaced.
How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. External hard drive formatting options apple community. Nov 12, 2019 formatting a hard drive is part of the clean install method of installing windows. Formatting in context of usb or hard drives means deleting everything from that drive and rebuilding the file system so that we can use it with an operating system. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. In case you cant boot to mac you can still take help from a friend who has a mac with the procedure. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. If there is only one ntfs partition on external hard drive, refer to the tutorial. Formatting an external hard drive for mac only or pc. Note that exfat is only compatible with versions of windows later than vista. Before continuing, make sure that you have a backup of any files that you want.
Nov 09, 2015 how do you access a faulty hard drive without formatting it. When formatting a hard drive with disk utility, make sure to select the correct drive. If you only want to format your external hard drive usb drive to regain full storage or remove virusinfected files, this is a good choice. 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. I am trying to format an external hard drive in ext4 format. I have macfuse and ntfs3g and ntfs for mac os installed. This section of the tutorial deals with each and every one of them in great detail. Click the done button to finish formatting the external hard drive for mac and pc to exfat. Jan 15, 2020 find the external hard drive under external and then click partition on the top menu of the right panel. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows.
If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Buying and using an external hd is one thing, getting the most out of it is quite another. Formatting a drive will erase all data and partitions on the disk. Mar 20, 2018 1 you should only format a hard drive in apfs if it is a ssd. There are various reasons why you might need to format external hard drives. Formatting a hard drive is part of the clean install method of installing windows. Ntfs format hard disks can be connected to mac os but the drive will run with read only permission which means you can only copy from hard disk but cant add or delete anything from hard disk. If you just plug them in, they will usually work with a mac for general. How to format seagate external hard drive for both mac. Unformat mac hard drive recover formatted hard drive on. It is recommended to use ntfs if youre working strictly with windows computers.