I hope you enjoyed my article on how to make an external hard drive compatible with mac and pc without reformatting. Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the information provided. If you want to transfer files from a mac to windows pc and vice versa using an external portable hard drive then you have to have the external. 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. 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. Formatting and reformatting a drive erases everything. Formatting your drive will wipe out all the data in it.
Macintosh computers are able to recognize hard drives formatted for both macintosh and windows computers. Most external hard drives are crossplatform, giving them the ability to work on a number of different operating systems. Connect it, power it up, go to disk utility in applicationsutilities, select the wd disk on the left, go to the erase tab, and choose mac os extended. I can find it under device manager and disk management but thats it. First of all, as i said before, reformating will erase all your data that stored on the hard drive permanently. Enter the drive name in the utility window on the left side, and pick it. Instead, well just be wiping the drive and starting over from scratch. Heres how to format a drive if you are planning to use it with a mac. Make sure your external hard drive is attached and mounted to. Therefore, scroll down until you see a folder utilities double click on it. How to format an external hard drive the easy way in 2020.
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 part 3. Back to the main topic, below is a step by step instruction on how to formatreformat a hard drive for mac os. Format external hard drive for mac reformat external. How to format an external drive for mac compatibility. Now either because of time, corruption or because it may have been formatted for a mac when i plug it into my pc i cant access it. How to share an external drive between a mac and a pc. This is a simple procedure and is achieved the same way for all drive types and through. 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.
Designed by microsoft to provide similar compatibility to fat32 without the pesky limitations, exfat is the format of choice for drives that youll. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility. If the external hard drive is pre formatted for mac, disk management will list 3 partitions and you will not be able to delete the health efi system partition because its a protected partition. Use the exfat file system and never format your external. All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your mac. Connect the hard drive or usb key to the mac launch disk utility, located in applications utilities locate the drive name from the left hand side of disk utility and click on it. Instead, save them to your mac hard drive first, then transfer them back to your external drive later. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing data. Take these measures to ensure that you have enough room to enjoy your data for years to come. This process wont actually convert the file system.
How to reformat my external hard drive for windows 10. If youre erasing an external drive, make sure that its connected directly to your. First, back up the data on the macformatted drive if you have anything important on it. The drive should automatically mount on your macs desktop if the finder preferences are set to show external drives. How to recover data from a formatted external hard drive. If you want to format your external hard drive to work with mac and windows computers, you should use exfat. If you have a mac lying around, you can plug the drive into a mac and back up the files. If it does not you will need to rightclick and delete the volume first. Should i just wait until i get the new laptop and attempt to reformat the drive on it. Reformatting an external hard drive macrumors forums. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Please remember that all data will be deleted from the drive, so make sure you have made a backup. Go finder window on you mac then click on applications the image right.
Connect the empty external hd to your mac and launch disk utility. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Connect the external drive or the usb drive to the mac. In the format partition section, select the file system. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Ive been using my 500gb wd my book for a couple years as storage for media. But unfortunately it bit the dust and i decided to get a pc. How to format an external hard drive on windows formatting a hard drive on windows is a simple affair, especially if you leave everything as default. Make sure you select the disk icon right under external. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive.
Which mac file system is best for an external drive. Find the name of the drive in the left side of the utilities window and select it. Onedrive for mac installed on an external drive does not. This isnt really mac related but, is it beneficial to reformat an external hard drive. How to format an external drive for mac from ntfs to mac os extended. By default, they format disks with the maconly os x extended file system. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. Reformatting is a destructive process, so if you want the drive in a different format such as mac os extended you will need to copy the files off to another location temporarily and then bring them back once the drive is reformatted. How to format wd external drive for mac apple community. Reformatting external hard drive without apple community.
But, if you plan on using an external drive with both macs and pcs, you should format the disk with the exfat file system instead. Now here is how to format your fat32 external drive on mac. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. Since formatting an external hard drive will erase all of its files if you wish to save them you must back them up copy. Start the disk utility, located under applications utilities. After formatting the drive i named the drive onedriveexternal and when going into this drive in finder there was an onedrive folder. External hard drive compatible with mac and pc without. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. Its already in fat32 but would i gain anything performancewise from reformatting it. 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. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them.
Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. How to reformat an external hard drive for a mac techwalla. I just got a 1tb internal drive and now i want to use the external for my ps3. Bonus tip data recovery from formatted hard drive on mac. Reformatting a drive on windows is a pretty straightforward process. Please note that reformatting the drive will erase all the information on the drive. In this post, youll learn how to format an external drive to a mac compatible file system and recover files from a reformatted hard drive. Step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. This formatting is also known as mac os extended journaled file system. Yes, its recommended to format the drive on a windows computer. If you havent used your hard drive in a while, or you just bought a new one, you may have to reformat it to be compatible with your computer.
Whether youre selling your computer, trying a new operating system, or setting up an external drive for backups, sometimes you need to completely erase and format a hard drive. Click erase button, the external hard drive will be formatted. To format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. You can only read your elements external hard drive. With exfat, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years. Previously the onedrive folder was the external drive called onedrive, i. Reformatting 3tb wd my book for mac to windows external. Now that you know which format to use, check out our guide on how to format your hard drive on. Macos external drive not showing not reformatting fix.
This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only. 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. Formatting a drive will erase all data and partitions on the disk. Reformatting an external hard drive for mac step 1. If you select the one below it, the partition option will be greyed out and become unclickable. I hope you have retrieved all your lost data due to reformatting the external drive.
It is possible to reformat the drive and keep your files by formatting your drive and then using a data recovery tool to restore your information. An external hard drive is a data storage device that connects to a computer with a cable, typically usb or firewire. If the drive is not formatted, you may get a message saying that the drive. Since the mac can read the old drive, an external drive formatted mac os extended could be attached as well. The tutorial and screenshots below are based on macos sierra. So the first step you must do is move all of your important data to your pcmac, or to cloud storage service. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. Lacie setup assistant helps you to quickly format the storage device according to your needs. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide.
To format external hard drive on mac, all you have to do is plugin your hard drive and launch disk utility. But dont forget to back up your important data in the drive into a safe place. How to reformat mac external harddrive for pc march 2014. Allows your external drive to freely read and write files from. Either way there is a solution to having an existing external hard drive for mac and pc. Aborted lacie setup assistant while it was formatting. How to format your hard drive seagate support asean. If the above software doesnt work to rescue your data, you can send your external hard drive to a recovery company for data rescue services. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. You can use lacie setup assistant to format your lacie hard drive when it is first connected to a computer mac or windows. Cannot mount external hard drive on mac, how to fix. However, you need to make doubly sure that you complete a quick format. Reformatting your drive mac are you finding that you are unable to drag documents and folders to your external hard drive.