This works with any hard drive, flash drive, ssd, usb drive, or just about any other. Both mac os x and windows allow users to format their hard drives using builtin utilities. How to format a hard drive on windows or mac avast. Formatting a hard drive can change the file system to make it compatible with your computers operating system, as well as fix any nonphysical errors on the drive itself. Download the windows 7 usb dvd download tool to format the hard disk now and install windows 7 later or the windows 10 media creation tool to format the hard drive now and install windows 10 later. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step. For example, in windows xp my computer is equivalent to this pc on windows 10. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Windows formatted hard drives have either ntfs file system of an fat32 file system. I have purchased a 1tb portable external seagate hard drive and i would like to use it with both my mac and windows computer. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac apple. Change the partition layout from current to 1 partition. If you are on an earlier operating system like windows 7, xp, etc.
Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on mac. Thus in order to make the hard drive windows formatted, you have to convert the file system to ntfs or fat32. I know mac operating system doesnt fully supports ntfs formatted drive. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. 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.
How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. If it does not you will need to rightclick and delete the volume first. How to format a usb flash drive on windows 10 windows. 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. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdos is the formatting option for pc. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and. Other than using the thirdparty tool, you can also format your hard drive from usb with the help of windows installation disk, which, as you will know, is relatively more complicated than using a bootable format tool as shown in method 1 step 1. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. Seagate backup plus slim, especially for largecapacity removable storage devices. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities.
This wikihow teaches you how to change an external usb hard drives format on windows and mac computers. Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard drive. On windows 10, the ability to format a usb flash drive can come in handy in a number of scenarios. 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. If you are techy and use windows and mac computers frequently, then you might need to transfer data between mac and pc. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc.
The windows system uses a hard drive with a different file system than the mac systems. In disk utility on your mac, you can format an external disk for a windows computer. It is the reliable disk formatting tool for windows mac. Follow the instructions to create a bootable usb drive. Convert formatted drive from mac to windows info remo. Rather than use a mac formatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exfatformatted drives for moving data between macs and pcs. How to format a flash drive to work on os x and windows. Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility. The first technique to format write protected usb drive is by using the registry editor on windows. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. If you plan to use the usb drive on linux computers, you can format it to this file system. Rightclick your flash drive and then select format. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac cnet. How to format internal andor external drive to work properly on mac and windows computers.
How to share an external drive between a mac and a pc. Better still, it can be read from and written to on any mac running mac os x snow leopard or later and on windows. External data storage devices such as usb flash drives, external hard disk drives hdds, and solid state drives ssds provide one of the easiest ways to transfer files between separate computers without accessing the. To format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format. Most accessory manufacturers tend to build accessories for the more dominant platforms, which is why many computer peripherals tend to be more focused on. As a comprehensive data erasure tool, aweeraser for mac can help you securely and permanently format a hard drive or device under mac os. Connect the power supply if necessary, connect to the mac via usb or firewire, and turn on the drive. To learn how to format write protected usb drive via the registry editor, follow these steps. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac.
To format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. Select the external hard drive on the lefthand side. If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. Hard drive format software for mac mac disk format software. Click the link below to download the 5 day free trial of a great utility macdrive install that, then restart your pc, start the utility and connect the drive, you will then have access to that mac drive like any other pc hard drive. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab.
This thing is still unknown for many users but doesnt worry its not complex. Paragon disk wipe allows you to create a bootable usb flash drive or external hard drive that will help you to completely erase a whole hard disk, a separate partition or just clean free space. Guide how to format hard drive from usb with bootable. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Cant access mac hard drive on windows 10 microsoft. Follow these next steps to create one skip to step 2 if youve got a dvd already.
Create a windows installation disk and boot your pc from it. Windows cannot natively access a mac formatted drive. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. Here are two outstanding mac hard drive format software tools you can rely on. Formatting a disk or volume erases all the files on it. How to format seagate drive for mac and pc quickly and. How to format hard drives on windows, mac and linux. Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. It is recommended to use ntfs if youre working strictly with windows computers.
Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. But to get a hard drive to be compatible with both mac and pc, you have to choose the. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. As mentioned before, macs can only read ntfsformatted hard drives by. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. Now, lets take a look at some ways you can format your usb drive on windows 10. Now that we know the good and bad about every file system, let see how to format a drive in windows, mac, and linux. How to format usb drives on windows 10 make tech easier. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac. All data has to be put in a file format that the operating system can read off the hard drive. This is the easiest way and simply requires you to plug in your usb drive, open the windows file explorer and right click your drive to view a number of actions that you can perform. In the main interface, right click the partition on that need. 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 to share a usb drive between a mac and a windows pc, there are two disk formats to choose from. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility.
Click on the usb drive in the sidebar in disk utility. Both fat32 and exfat can be used on windows pc and mac. Formatted external hard drive without backup and want to recover the data. 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. Im here to use a windows 10 based hp laptop to format my lexar drive. Under file system box, select exfat for this drive. Choose the exfat file system in the list and click start. Step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. The extended file system ext was the first file system created specifically for linux. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. 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. It is a dedicated system utility tool that stores all the vital details and parameters related to windows settings. How to choose the best format for usb drive on windowsmac. Set up your drive following the manufacturers instructions.