Select the drive from the left sidebar, then click the partition tab. That said, if you are using both a pc and mac in the workflow, youll need to use a different format. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the. Please keep in mind that reformatting will result in the loss of all the data on the hard drive so make sure you back up your data elsewhere before starting. If you want to use the usb devices in windows you have to know how to do it. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Usb drives and external hard drives on macos catalina are used for storing and backing up important data such as photos, videos, audios, images, notes, messages, music files, pdf files, word documents, among other files. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. 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. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. To create a partition or volume the two terms are often used interchangeably on a hard disk, you must be logged in as an administrator, and there must be either unallocated disk space or free space within an extended. Nov 22, 2019 i have an old external 1 tb hard drive id like to format for use with apple time machine backup. First, note the number of the disk in the disk management window.
Mar 12, 2018 want to format a hard drive for mac and pc compatibility. How to format a hard drive on mac to work on mac and pc. The problem is that the disk is currently formatted as ntfs and is not readable with time machine. How to format your hard drive to exfat file system on windows 10. 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. Use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. A vast majority of video production will be done on a mac or windows operating system, so we arent going to cover linux.
Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and windows. Aug 31, 2016 to create a partition or volume the two terms are often used interchangeably on a hard disk, you must be logged in as an administrator, and there must be either unallocated disk space or free space within an extended partition on the hard disk. With disk utility open, locate the hard drive you want to partition and select partition. Format usb drive, external hard drive on macos catalina. How to use mac formatted external hard drive on windows. Now that we know the good and bad about every file system, let see how to format a drive in windows, mac, and linux. Create and format a hard disk partition windows help. Here you will get to know about the process to format your my passport portable drive in fat32 and exfat file system in both windows and mac platforms. Oct 25, 2016 usb devices,that are formatted in mac format. First and foremost, you need to decide which file system to use.
Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. Out of the box, windows can not read or write hfs drives, and macs are. Mar 29, 2019 how to format a hard drive on mac to work on mac and pc. When done, quit disk utility to return to the utilities window.
Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the formatting option for pc. 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. Open disk management, the hard drive manager included with all versions of windows. I have an old external 1 tb hard drive id like to format for use with apple time machine backup. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. Make sure your external hard drive is attached and mounted to. I had information from a broken mac backed up at best buy, but because my mac broke, now i only have a windows computer. Choose the exfat file system in the list and click start. Choose either apfs or mac os extended journaled to format as a mac volume. How to format usb driveexternal hard drive on macos catalina. Next, under the partition layout column, specify the number of partitions you want. Your backup plus desktop is formatted as ntfs for compatibility with windows out of the box. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac.
Dec 29, 2015 how to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. If you want to format a hard drive or usb flash drive on your computer, disk formatting tool is the best choice. In disk utility on your mac, you can format an external disk for a windows computer. How to format your hard drive to exfat file system on. Want to format a hard drive for mac and pc compatibility. Gpt is a newer format supporting larger capacities, but isnt compatible with. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. Macdisk, when launched from a windows partition created by the boot manager bootcamp on a macintosh with intel processor, can access the macintosh partition to copy files back and forth. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac apple. May 29, 2018 how to format drive with compatible file system for mac and windows. If virus or malware has ruined your hard drive, you can format the entire partition. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac.
Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. You can select to use a fat, fat32, exfat, ntfs, or refs file system when formatting. How to open mac format usb devce in windows youtube. If youre looking to dualboot with linux or run windows boot camp, you can format the partition as msdos fat, however, these programs. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. Connect your external hard drive to your windows 10 pc. You can format an external hard drive or thumb drive to work seamlessly with both mac and windows by using the exfat file system. Open the disk management tool by rightclicking this pc manage disk management. The easiest way to do that is hit cmd and the spacebar at. Simply follow any of the methods discussed in the article and successfully format your drive to exfat file system. This also allows you to restore time machine backups on windows. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. Give the drive a descriptive name and leave the default settings.
Follow these easy steps to format a hard drive in windows 10, windows 8, windows 7, windows vista, or windows xp. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac cnet. Dont click the format disk button or windows will erase the contents of the driveclick cancel. The windows system uses a hard drive with a different file system than the mac systems. 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. However, ntfs is not fully compatible with mac computers. Download disk formatting software for mac doyourdata. Nov 19, 2015 how to format an external hard drive or pen drive. Thus in order to make the hard drive windows formatted, you have to convert the file system to ntfs or fat32. This works with any hard drive, flash drive, ssd, usb drive, or just about any other.
Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on mac. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. Mar 19, 2020 how to format a hard drive in windows follow these easy steps to format a hard drive in windows 10, windows 8, windows 7, windows vista, or windows xp. 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 wipe a hard drive in windows 10 and macos techradar. For example, in the screenshot below, the mac formatted drive is disk 2. What format for my external drive allows use with mac and.
Formatting your drive to exfat file system is very easy. 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. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. Following this guide includes reformatting your external drive. However, when we connect a ntfs formatted disk to mac, mac os x doesnt allow us to write files to the drive neither edit files, though it can read a ntfs drive. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. To utilize the hard disk space on your windows 10 pc more efficiently, you can create new partitions. How to create and format a hard disk partition in windows 10. How to format a hard drive for both windows and 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 a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. Windows formatted hard drives have either ntfs file system of an fat32 file system.
To start, your first step will be to find disk utility. Connect your western digital my passport hard drive to your windows pc through the usb cable. Windowsformatted hard drives have either ntfs file system of an fat32 file system. Open the start menu and search for disk management. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. For example, in the screenshot below, the macformatted drive is disk 2. Read mac formatted drives with windows the tech guy. The default guid partitioning scheme wont be recognised by 32bit windows xp and earlier windows operating systems and mac os x versions earlier than 10. File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple. Remember, this will erase all the files on the drive. Mac os x uses the hfs plus file system, while windows uses the ntfs file. How to format a drive for mac and pc compatibility posted by ant on march 11th, 2012 43 comments if you have an external hard drive or usb flash drive that youd like to use on both macs and windows pcs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing.
Change the partition layout from current to 1 partition. When you plug a drive thats been formatted for mac into a windows pc, you may find that it isnt readable. In the disk management, youll see your external hard drive as partition or. 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. Formatting a disk or volume erases all the files on it. Simple and easy to use, macdrive is recognized as the leader for accessing mac disks from windows for almost 20 years. How to format new hard drive on windows 10 windows central.
Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard drive. Sep 26, 2018 need to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. Therfore, you can connect backup plus desktop to a windows pc without formatting the hard drive. However, when you format your hard drive with super eraser for mac, all your data will be permanently lost. You have to set it up correctly before getting starting. How to format hard drives on windows, mac and linux. However, this format doesnt support larger files, which can be problematic for transferring 4k videos and so on between macs and windows 10. Format external hard drive with windows builtin tool. You can select the exfat format when using the disk. Select the external hard drive on the lefthand side. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. When you connect a macformatted drive to windows, youll be informed that you need to format the disk in drive x. Heres how to wipe the data off a hard drive, ssd, or external drive in windows 10 and macos.
Here are two outstanding mac hard drive format software tools you can rely on. It seems they formatted the drive to the mac format, but i have no way to access the data, at least i think. Dec 05, 2019 the windows system uses a hard drive with a different file system than the mac systems. Both mac os x and windows allow users to format their hard drives using builtin utilities.
To format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format. Hard drive format software for mac mac disk format software. Disk utility shows the recommended mac format by default. Apple file system format or the older mac os extended format, and it automatically chooses a compatible format for you. Then you can choose one of the hard drive and format it by click on format button. Connect the empty external hd to your mac and launch disk utility. Need to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. You can format external hard drive or other external drives with exfat or fat32 file system for mac and windows, so that both mac and windows computer can read and write it. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive. Mac os x has had support for reading ntfs formatted disk for a few versions, but still doesnt have write support. Follow these instructions if you plan to share an external hard drive between pc and mac computers.
How to format an external drive to work seamlessly with macs. 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. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. Fat32 and exfat can be compatible with mac and windows and you can choose one after realizing their respective merits and defects based on your demands. If you want to make your drive compatible with mac and windows, you need to format it with a common file system for mac and windows.
Mar 31, 2020 how to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. Next, open a command prompt window as administrator. You can format a hard drive or usb flash disk specifically so that it will be compatible with both mac os x and windows pc computers. Mar 15, 2018 windows cant normally read macformatted drives, and will offer to erase them instead. 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. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc.