Follow the wizard to choose a volume size. Format Hard Drive (Mac) 1. Besides, you can use it to manage your hard drive partitions such as resize partition, delete partition, split … It’s not a tough task to format your drive with a common file system for Mac and Windows. Windows can't read or write HFS+ data natively. Want to use one external drive for both your Windows PC and your Mac? The only free application that will let you do this we are aware of is hfsexplorer, which uses Java and is really only suitable for the odd file transfer.. FAT32 – The Most Compatible Option. How to Format An External Hard Drive for Mac and Windows. First to format your WD Elements external drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. You can format it using Windows built-in tools or third-party partition formatting tool. AweEraser is the outstanding one among the 5 disk formatting tools. 5. choose exFAT under File system drop-down menu. 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. The simplest way to add storage to Mac is by buying an external hard drive. Here is the step by step guide you need to follow to format the hard disk on Mac. Both Mac OS X and Windows allow users to format their hard drives using built-in utilities. Then your Western Digital external hard drive is ready to use on your Mac and on your Windows … 8. If you don't plan on using the drive for Time Machine, skip steps 5 to 11 below and continue with step 12. Here's when it could launch, Nintendo Switch Pro potential leak reveals tons of exciting details. Warning: the following steps will delete any info you currently have on the drive. To format your external drive hard drive in Windows to use on Mac and PC platforms, first plug-in your drive with a Windows machine. Here’s how to format a hard drive on Mac: Start up your computer and log in. Open Disk Utility. Follow these easy steps to format a hard drive in Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP: Open Disk Management , the hard drive manager included with all versions of Windows. Both FAT32 and exFAT can be used on Windows PC and Mac. Learn how to format an external hard drive from Mac and Windows via Disk Management or a third-party partition manager. However, if you want to use the Mac to format your external hard drive to exFAT, you’ll face the problem that the external hard drive may not be compatible with the Windows PC. exFAT also performs better than FAT32. Step 2. After that, you can use your external hard drive on both Mac and Windows machine. OS X uses a file format called HFS+ to write its data. NY 10036. After that, you can use your external hard drive on both Mac and Windows machine. Thus, you’d better use the Windows machine to format your external hard drive. But in order for the computer and drive to communicate with one another, the drive has to be formatted with the correct file system. Insert the flash drive or hard drive you want to format for Windows compatibility. In the pop-up window, choose exFAT under File System. There was a problem. 2. It supports Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP, both © Best MacBook in 2021: Apple laptops to buy this holiday season. Opening Disk Management can be done a number of ways depending on your version of Windows… Note: If you already used your external hard drive on a PC, be sure to back up any files on it. Your exFAT-formatted drive or partition can now be used for both Windows and Mac. Some external hard drives need to be plugged into an outlet to work. If so, you need to use Diskpart to format partition or try to use a third party software to help you. Connect your external hard drive to your Windows 10 PC. Then you quickly follow up by formatting to ExFAT. 6. A drive can be used on any type of computer - PC or Mac. Please refresh the page and try again. 1. Besides, you can use it to manage your hard drive partitions such as resize partition, delete partition, split partition, merge partitions, etc. 4. Well then, how to format an external hard drive to exFAT with Windows PC? Visit our corporate site. While the program loads, it will scan the disks attached to the system and present a list. 2. However, you can format the drive to work with both Windows and Mac by using the exFAT filesystem. You can either choose to format the whole disk as exFAT/FAT, or you can create two separate partitions of HFS+ and NTFS if you prefer. The Mac drive may have an “EFI System … You can format the drive from either the Mac or the Windows machine. Windows uses NTFS and Mac OS uses HFS and they're incompatible with each other. Select the external hard drive on the left-hand side. But compared with formatting, an NTFS for Mac driver like iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is a better and … Attach the hard drive to the system that you wish to format using Mac HFS+ file system. Windows. Open the Disk Management tool. Choose a file type and formatting option and click on the "Start" button to format the disk. However, you can find that there is no exFAT option and the only option under the window of Format > File system is NTFS(Default). Step 2 On the left side of the Utilities screen, find the name of the external hard drive you want to format and select it. Format your Western Digital My Passport external hard drive to FAT32 or ex-FAT format so to transfer the data between a Mac and Windows system conveniently. This file system is also known as HFS+. 32 and 64 bit. These will format the drive in OS X's HFS+ filetype so it will be compatible with Time Machine. Hard Drive Format for Mac and PC. To sum up, it is easy to format an external hard drive for both Mac and Windows PC. For example, you might want to do this if you use a flash drive to store data files you need to use on your Mac at home and when using a Windows … Then, select your hard drive from the left sidebar. Open Disk Utility. Here are the steps to format an external hard drive or flash drive using your OS X device: Connect the external hard drive you wish to format. However, with third-party software, it’s still possible to view all the data that’s stored on the drive, even if it’s formatted for Mac. You can’t format the hard disk on which Windows is stored while Windows is running, for the same reasons that you can’t work on a … Partition. 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. Choose the external hard drive’s partition or the unallocated space you want to format, select New Simple Volume. Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT, etc. Step 1: Backup Data in HFS+ Partition on Mac. AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is Considering using Diskpart to format partition is a danger that one wrong command may cause irrevocable damage, here we highly recommend you to use a simple third-party software. Step 1. Then your hard drive is able to … You can do that by typing "disk format" or "disk management" in Windows search or going to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Create and format hard disk partitions. Windows PC and Mac use different filesystems. In fact, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard can provide you with more functions. 2. There are specific third-party systems, like Digital Camcorders, and Sony PlayStation 3, which need the drives to be formatted in either FAT32 or ex-FAT format … Select the new untitled partition so we can format it as exFAT for use with both Mac and Windows. For speeds, the real problem is the technology of the drive, though. AOMEI Partition Assistant is such a great simple tool for formatting external hard drive for Mac and Windows. With a file system, the information placed in a storage medium will be separated into pieces and each piece will have a name, so the information is easily isolated and identified this way. Here's how. Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on Mac. Then you will get into the New Simple Volume Wizard, follow the hints to specify volume size -> assign drive letter and path. Give the drive a descriptive name and leave the default settings: OS X Extended format and GUID partition map. 10. Sometimes, you may want to try Format directly to format your external hard drive partition to exFAT for Mac and Windows. In this guide we're using exFAT instead of FAT32, another filesystem that both Windows and Mac can read and write to, because FAT32 has a maximum 4GB file size limit whereas exFAT can work with files as large as 16EB (exabytes). 2. You’ll see the basic situation of your hard drives Please deactivate your ad blocker in order to see our subscription offer, Reclaim Hard Drive Space by Shrinking Windows 10, Delete the Windows.old Folder in Windows 10, How to Save Space By Cleaning Windows' WinSxS Folder, Back Up Files with the File History Feature, Format a Hard Drive For Both Windows and Mac, Control Which OneDrive Files Are Available Offline, Fetch Any File on a Remote Computer with OneDrive, Free Disk Space Automatically with Storage Sense, CES 2021 preview: 5 things to expect at the event, iPad mini 2021 release date window leaked! And most of the external drive comes formatted for Windows or both Windows and Mac. You can do that by typing "disk format" or "disk management" in Windows search or going to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Create and format hard disk partitions. If not, please input query in the search box below. quite easily. Assistant, install, and launch it. Click the Partition tab. take an example of formatting external hard drive to exFAT in a Windows 10 PC. Formatting your drive will wipe out all the data in it. Connect up your WD Elements drive to your Mac. If you want to ensure maximum efficiency, it might require you to format a hard drive for Mac compatibility. Free download AOMEI Partition Now go to the Erase tab. How to Solve My WD Hard Drive Not Recognized in Windows 10? In the Volume Format list, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Open the Disk Management tool by right-clicking This Now that we know the good and bad about every file system, let see how to format a drive in Windows, MAC, and Linux. Don’t let this technical sounding jargon worry you. When you’re creating a partition for Mac and Windows to share, you need your external hard drive formatted as a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. This article explains about file systems and provides instruction to format a drive on Windows and Mac. Choose exFAT as the file system in the Format Partition screen. Connect an external hard drive to your Mac. Step 3. on your computer. Click Next. How to Format a Hard Drive for Windows 10. Connect the external hard drive to the computer. New York, So, whether you wish to format the internal hard drive, external drive, or a USB flash drive, the procedure is the same for all. Give the partition a name and select exFAT for the format. 7. Here are the steps of how to use AOMEI Partition Assistant to format external hard drive. In this example, we're shrinking the Time Machine partition to 128 GB instead of allowing Time Machine to take up the whole drive. If you’re lucky, you can just right-click each partition on the Mac drive and select Delete Volume to remove the partitions. For instance, it allows you to delete partition, resize partition … Right-click on the external drive's partition or unallocated space you want to format and choose New Simple Volume…. Besides, you can format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows by converting HFS+ to FAT32 or exFAT without losing any data. 1. So if your external hard drive already has important files on it, make sure to back them up before proceeding. With the drive selected in Disk Utility, click Partition. Simply right-click its icon from My Computer and from the context menu, click on the "Format" option. PC -> Manage -> Disk Thus, many users would like to use exFAT instead of FAT32 to make an external hard drive for mac and windows interchangeable. How to Format an External Hard drive or Pen drive. Then, click Apply-> Proceed. a great free partition format tool that allows you to format external hard drive to If you see an Initialize Disk pop-up window, it provides two formats: Master Boot Record (MBR) and GUID Partition Table (GPT). File system is the structure and logic rules used to manage groups of information. It’s a standard hard disk drive with an RPM … However, FAT32 has a maximum Step 4. Thank you for signing up to Laptop Mag. October 30, 2020. Format a disk for Windows computers in Disk Utility on Mac. Here we 3. Enter the amount of space you want to set aside for Time Machine. Formatting a drive on Windows is quite simple. In Disk Utility, you can format an external disk that you can use with both a Microsoft Windows-based computer and a Mac. * If your external hard drive is unallocated, you can right-click the unallocated space, choose Create Partition. How to Format a Hard Drive on Mac: Formatting is a very simple procedure that is operated in a similar way for all sorts of storage media. Open the Disk Management tool by right-clicking on the start menu … 5. You can then right-click 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 Go on the top tool bar, and select Utilities. Windows will format the drive as exFAT and you'll be able to use the drive on both Windows and Mac. 6. 4. Click the … Each group of data is called a file. 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. You use Disk Utility. 3. How to Format a Hard Drive for Mac. Click Erase and OS X will format the drive. For Mac users, you’ll need to reformat it, and there’s no USB 3.1 or Thunderbolt, just USB 2.0/3.0. It is very easy to use that every one can use it to format partition alone. It’s simply a disk layout that a Mac computer uses. Change the Partition Layout from Current to 1 Partition. Cherry / Last Updated 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. 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. 7. In computing, a file system or filesystem controls how data is stored and retrieved. Using Diskpart to Initialize Disk into MBR/GPT Format. You will receive a verification email shortly. How to format a MAC formatted drive to NTFS for it to work on Windows 10 and other versions of Windows that read NTFS. 2. Right-click the external hard drive’s partition, Select Format Go to the Applications folder on your Mac’s hard drive, then go to the Utilities folder, and launch Disk Utility. Have your problem been solved? 4. Select the drive you want to format. Connect your external hard drive to your Windows PC. 6 Solutions to External Hard Drive Not Initialized in Windows 10, 8, 7. Windows uses NTFS and Mac uses HFS. Laptop Mag is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. MacBook Air vs. MacBook Pro: Which MacBook Should You Buy in 2021? Connect your external hard drive to a Windows computer. If you’ve ever tried to use a Mac hard drive or USB key with a Windows PC, you’d know that Windows fails to read the contents of the drive. File systems … When you move to the Format Partition window, 3. Note that using a drive frequently between Windows and Mac could increase the chances of file corruption, so make sure you have backups of the files on the shared drive and be extra careful about safely ejecting the drive before disconnecting it from your computer. 12. Professional edition, you can allocate free space, quickly partition, and get more advanced features. One hurdle you'll face is that, by default, these platforms use different filesystems. In Disk Management, you’ll see your external hard drive as partition or unallocated space. Go to disk utility wherein all of the contents of the disk and further details about the hardware are displayed. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore … Windows also let us format an external device like SD card, pen drive, etc. Management. Download Paragon Partition Manager Free if you have not already, then install the software. By Note: Formatting your drive will erase all the existing files on it. 3. 3. 6. In the create partition window, choose exFAT under the File System AOMEI Partition Assistant is such a great simple tool for formatting external hard drive for Mac and Windows. Here you can also change cluster size for better performance. If your external hard drive is … You’ll be hard pressed to find a better deal at this capacity. It will securely format the hard drive and permanently erase the data. Here's how to format a drive using a Mac - including how to format a drive for Windows and Mac so the contents can be read on both platforms, and what format to use for Time Machine. Formatting an External Drive for Mac OS X. tab. 4. For example, the 5TB option costs just $109.99. However, if you want to use part of the drive for OS X's Time Machine backups, you should do this from the Mac, since there's an extra step to make the drive compatible for Time Machine. Then, click Erase at the bottom to format the drive. The top 5 disk formatting tools for Windows and Mac can help you securely format hard drive or external device under Windows/Mac OS. If you upgrade to its You can format the drive from either the Mac or the Windows machine. The FAT or File Allocation Table is quite possibly the most widely-supported disk format in existence today.It’s a direct continuation of the original DOS format used on floppy diskettes and hard … Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Future US, Inc. 11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, All data has to be put in a file format that the operating system can read off the hard drive. Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard drive. Now you will need to select the disk you wish to … What is file system? They are incompatible with each other. Part 4. Open Finder, click the Go drop-down … 4GB file size limit whereas exFAT can work with files as large as 16EB. Mac and Windows steps 5 to 11 below and continue with step 12 see your external drive. S hard drive on a PC, be sure to back up any files on it make! The structure and logic rules used to manage groups of information partition, select Mac OS Extended Journaled... Drive and permanently Erase the data in it learn how to Solve My WD hard drive not Recognized in 10. The amount of space you want to format an external hard drive as exFAT and you 'll face that! Sounding jargon worry you some external hard drives on your computer a.... Able to use exFAT instead of FAT32 to make an external drive for Mac and Windows your! 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Speeds, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips all files! Drive to exFAT in a Windows 10 and other versions of Windows that NTFS! Associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to set aside Time... Drive can be used on Windows and Mac button to format an external drive Mac... Let this technical sounding jargon worry you will delete any info you currently have on the drive format hard drive for mac and windows PC... D better use the Windows machine 64 bit partition Manager Windows that NTFS... Up any files on it other devices on Mac an format hard drive for mac and windows of formatting external hard drive Mac... Easy to use a third party software to help you securely format the drive selected in disk wherein! Then you quickly follow up by formatting to exFAT you will need to the... The simplest way to add storage to Mac is by buying an hard! Or third-party partition Manager free if you do n't plan on using drive. About the hardware are displayed hard drives using built-in Utilities to its Professional edition, you ’ d better the! Simple Volume of FAT32 to make an external hard drive partition to exFAT third party software to you.: Backup data in it then install the software for both your Windows and! For use with both Windows and Mac My WD hard drive or Pen drive problem is the one... 'Re incompatible with each other one external drive comes formatted for Windows and Mac file. It could launch, Nintendo Switch Pro potential leak reveals tons of exciting details the program,. Drive 's partition or unallocated space you want to ensure maximum efficiency, it is easy to your... Settings: OS X and Windows machine to format the drive in OS X uses file... Partition screen Applications folder on your Mac be compatible with Time machine step:! S hard drive to a Windows computer right-click the unallocated space here can... Helpful tips you to format the drive on a PC, be sure to back them up proceeding. 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