If you want to use the drive between a windows and mac machine, you can format it to fat32. Go through this article and find out the easiest way to format your toshiba drive for mac. Under file system box, select exfat for this drive. Although in principal, formatting means to erase existing data and free up space for utilization, the procedures are not exactly the same for mac and windows. The exfat format supports virtually any size hard drive and file, unlike the outdated fat32 format. Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar.
Learn how to use macos recovery to reinstall the mac operating system on your builtin drive or an external drive. The formatting process duration depends on size and type of the drive. Convert formatted drive from mac to windows info remo. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. Im here to use a windows 10 based hp laptop to format my lexar drive. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. A vast majority of video production will be done on a mac or windows operating system, so we arent going to cover linux. This will split the drive into multiple partitions, select the primary partition then click next. It will automatically locate the connected drive, and you can load it.
However, you can format the drive to work with both windows and mac by using the exfat filesystem. In the file system list box, choose exfat, type in. Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on mac. Video showing how to format drive for mac and windows computers. How to format a usb flash drive on windows 10 windows.
How to format drive with compatible file system for mac. Formatting your toshiba hard drive for mac is important, as it makes the hard drive best suitable for the mac by formatting it with the osspecific file system and drivers. If a wireless network is available, you can choose it from the wi. You can use lacie setup assistant to format your lacie hard drive when it is first connected to a computer windows or mac. 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. That said, if you are using both a pc and mac in the workflow, youll need to use a different. People might need to format a hard drive or an external hard drive in windows 10 for various reasons. Rightclick on windows icon, select disk management.
If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. Whether you go the software or hardware route depends on your situation. Format your external drive with exfat for both mac and. The system reserved partition is where recovery files are kept for diagnostics and repairing damaged windows 10 files. You can select the exfat format when using the disk utility to format the drive. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. This will format the drive as exfat format and your drive is now compatible with both platforms. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. The top 5 disk formatting tools for windows and mac can help you securely format hard drive or external device under windowsmac os. To use hfsexplorer, connect your macformatted drive to your windows pc and launch hfsexplorer.
And it also wipes out all the bugs and harmful files that might harm your mac. 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. Formatting a drive may vary in terms of different operating systems, like windows and mac. In the volume label field, type a label to quickly identify the flash drive in. How to format new hard drive on windows 10 windows central. Just like windows, macos also gives us a seamless option to format hard drive for mac and pc. Plug in the external hard drive into the system and open windows explorer by clicking on the computer section in the side bar, you will see your external hard drive get attached to your system. To use hfsexplorer, connect your mac formatted drive to your windows pc and launch hfsexplorer. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac.
Windows uses ntfs and mac os uses hfs and theyre incompatible with each other. For example, in windows xp my computer is equivalent to this pc on windows 10. How to format a hard drive on windows or mac avast. Lacie setup assistant helps you to quickly format the storage device according to your needs. For instructions on how to format your hard drive on a mac, please reference the following links. This will help you format the drive for exfat so that it can be used on both platforms. Moving files from macformatted external hard drive to 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. Im not very computer savvy, so i want to ask some specific directions. How to choose the best format for usb drive on windowsmac. Rightclick on the drive you want to format, click on format.
How to format new or second hard drive on windows 10mac. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. In the main interface, right click the partition on that need. The below steps for formatting external drive is for windows 10 and also. But to get a hard drive to be compatible for both mac and pc, you have to choose the exfat. Aborted lacie setup assistant while it was formatting. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. If you are on an earlier operating system like windows 7, xp, etc. Use the file system dropdown menu, and select ntfs recommended. Either way there is a solution to having an existing external hard drive for mac and pc. You can then rightclick in the empty space and select new simple volume to create a partition and format it with the windows ntfs or fat32 file systems. Click the file menu and select load file system from device.
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. A hard disk drive will take longer to format than a flash drive. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. A drive can be formatted with exfat using either a windows or a mac computer. From what im reading, an exfat formatted drive can only be read on windows vista or higher, so it appear msdos fat is how im going to have to go. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Solved formatting external drive for mac and pc spiceworks.
Using it, you can erase a hard drive, create new partitions, and even repair your disk as well. Once formatted, the existing data on the disk are probably unrecoverable for most people. Seagate backup plus is preformatted exfat for compatibility with both mac and windows computers. I have bounced around the web trying to get instructions for formatting this portable drive for windows. How to format a hard drive on mac to work on mac and pc. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. I hope you enjoyed my article on how to make an external hard drive compatible with mac and pc without reformatting. To format the primary drive the hard disk where the operating system resides you need to boot into the setup program on windows 7 or windows 10 and use it to format your drive.
Now enter the name for the external drive which will be used after formatting and also select exfat for format option and click on the erase. Here is what i see on my windows pc after i formatted the drive on the mac using msdos fat. Rightclick the removable drive and select the format option. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. Rightclick the new hard drive and select the format option. After formatting, the data will be permanently lost. Step 6 once formatting completes, you can then use your drive in mac as a usual hard drive. 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. The operating system has an inbuilt tool, which is known as disk utility. From what i understand, windows doesnt always like the way macs do the formatting on some larger drives, though, so give it a try and if your windows machines dont like it. How to reinstall macos from macos recovery apple support. If youre formatting a drive that youve been using and that has data on it, doublecheck in explorer that the drive letter youre choosing here in disk management is the same as the one you see in explorer that has the information on it that you want to erase.
For instance, users want to write data to and read data from, to do a clean installation of the windows system, to get rid of a virus or malware, to erase the data before giving the drive to someone else or throwing it away. Lacie mobile drive user manual optional formatting and. It is the reliable disk formatting tool for windowsmac. Aweeraser is the outstanding one among the 5 disk formatting tools. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the formatting option for pc. Finally, when all preferences are set, click the erase button. Both fat32 and exfat can be used on windows pc and mac. Select the unallocated drive listed, click new, click apply then ok.
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