How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. It is the fastest way to format an external hard drive device under mac os. Add virtual cd and dvd drives to your pc with alcohol how to. Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. Formatting is a very simple procedure which is operated in a similar way for all sorts of storage media. Once disk utility is open youll see the list of available drives on the left.
Many people think it is hard to format the windows drive on macintosh. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Instructions for how to format your external drive so that it will be fully usable in macos. For most reasons to erase, including when reformatting a disk or selling, giving away, or trading in your mac, you should erase your entire disk. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Cleanmydrive is absolutely free to use, so download it on the mac app store and enjoy. The following is based on the latest version of macos. Formatting your drive will wipe out all the data in it. If a wireless network is available, you can choose it from the wi. From floppies to hard drives, macdrive can handle almost any disk you toss at it.
The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Change the partition layout from current to 1 partition. 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. 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. You can run it on your mac, and use it to format external hard drive or device on your mac.
Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. For windows, it offers quick format feature when you rightclick the hard drive on the computer. It will likely already be formatted, either for use. Time machine cant back up to an ios device or disk formatted for windows. Make sure the allocation unit size is set to default and type in a volume label. Here are a few solutions for getting full readwrite access to ntfs drives. How to format usb flash drive on mac stepbystep tutorial. Step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. This format is also compatible with all versions of windows but limited to none windows os as fat32. Follow these easy steps to format a hard drive in windows 10, windows 8, windows 7, windows vista, or windows xp. Open disk management tool by rightclicking on start menu icon and then select disk management. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Dec 29, 2015 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.
Heres how to format a drive if you are planning to use it with a mac. 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. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. So, whether you wish to format the internal hard drive, external drive, or a usb flash drive, the procedure is the same for all. Means if one want to transfer movie or any stuff greater than 4gb it. May 29, 2018 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. Certainly you can format the drives yourself by directly setting in the application on mac. Just like windows, macos also gives us a seamless option to format hard drive for mac and pc. Open disk management, the hard drive manager included with all versions of windows. Apr 30, 2020 to format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. The videos below demonstrate the complete process of formatting an external hard drive for full mac os x compatibility, this uses the. Now right click on the external drive and click on format option doublecheck the drive name and capacity to make sure you are going to format the right drive.
How to choose the best format for usb drive on windowsmac. If you need to erase the disk manually, use the disk utility app to erase using the mac os extended journaled format. Now enter the volume label as you need and change the file system for exfat and click ok. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Plug the drive into a usb socket if you have a recent macbook or macbook pro that only has usbc connectors, youll need a usbc to usba adaptor. Moreover, the thunderbolt 3 drives you can buy are constrained by the maximum throughput of the drive itself, rather than the. In this article, we are taking a closer look at the disk utility, which comes with all recent versions of the mac os x operating system and how you can use it to format usb drive on mac. Jan 15, 2019 all the drives will be at hand in the menu bar, so you can get to see types of drives you have and manage them easily. Apfs vs mac os extended which mac disk format is best. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac.
Choose one of the following apfs formats for mac computers using macos 10. Learn how to use macos recovery to reinstall the mac operating system on your builtin drive or an external drive. If you want to be super security conscious, you can select the security options button. Not just hard drives, but removable usb drives, too. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them. With exfat, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years. Reformatting the drive will erase all data on the drive, so you should copy any data you want off the drive prior to formatting. If you want to format your external hard drive to work with mac and windows computers, you should use exfat. This could be useful if you want to write to a boot camp partition on your mac, as windows system partitions must use the ntfs file system. Remember, this will erase all the files on the drive. Both windows and mac os offer builtin disk formatting tool.
In the new properties window, check general file system and youll see what type of file system your flash drive is currently with. In the main interface, right click the partition on that need. In disk utility on your mac, format disks or volumes using apple file system apfs, mac os extended, msdos fat and exfat. That means that while macos can read ntfs drives, it is unable to write data to them without thirdparty software. Its very easy to format a usb drive on a mac using disk utility. Choose view show all devices from the menu bar in disk utility. Using exfat on macos and windows while you can only use an apple file system like apfs and mac os extended for your main system drive, another file system is also worth considering for external drives exfat. Today, we will talk about how to format or reformat ssd on mac.
Its exactly the same procedure if you need to reformat a flash drive on a mac. Macdrive also includes powerful features that enable you to create and partition mac disks direct from your pc. Uses the apfs format and is casesensitive to file and folder names. By default, they format disks with the maconly os x extended file system. This is a simple procedure and is achieved the same way for all drive types and through. 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. Oct 16, 2019 the best format for external hard drives. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple support. And youll detailed tutorial on how to format seagate drive for mac and windows computer in the following text.
Apples macos can read from windowsformatted ntfs drives, but cant write to them out of the box. If you are using a mac, you can run the builtin disk utility to quickly format a hard drive or external hard. Erase the mac partitions, including the efi system partition. Give the drive a descriptive name and leave the default settings. To format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. If youre erasing your startup disk, you might be prompted to enter your apple id. Go to open disk utility, which is located under applications in the finder menu. No worry, actually it is not impossible to realize it no matter you use an external or internal drive of your windows system. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive back up the drive s data first. All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your mac. Jun 02, 2017 in this video we look at the process of formatting a hard drive, flash drive, or ssd on an apple computer.
Disk utility can help you format fusion drive on mac, other disk management tools including macclean360 also can help you format fusion drive, but please note that the formatted data can be recovered by data recovery software. And in the event that your mac disks is having a problem, our robust repair feature can fix basic disk issues. Select the external hard drive on the lefthand side. To format an external storage device, connect it to one of the ports on your mac. When you get a new hard drive, it may already be formatted for windows or mac. As ntfs is proprietary, apple would need a special license to use it. How to format a hard drive for mac internal, external or flash. If you have a usb flash drive inserted in your mac, you can see it under the external in the disk utility.
Everything you need to know about your macs hard drive. A vast majority of video production will be done on a mac or windows operating system, so we arent going to cover linux. Once youve unboxed your new drive, connect it to your mac. Windows can read and write to ntfsformatted drives.
Bonus tip data recovery from formatted hard drive on mac. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. Repair a power mac g5 remove the superdrive how to. How to choose the best format for usb drive on windowsmaclinux. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods revealed. Download disk formatting software for mac doyourdata. With macdrive 9 standard, you can access, manage, and even create and format disk drives for apples mac os from inside windows explorer. There are a couple of things you should keep in mind, however. You can run easytouse mac disk formatting software to easily format internal ssd or external ssd under mac os. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. If the drive is internal, it should already show up in. The best format for your external hard drive the hellotech blog. Need to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. The easiest way to do that is hit cmd and the spacebar at.
Aug 27, 2019 those drives that are formatted in fat32 can be used in your mac for reading and writing but there might be an instance that you might experience some trouble once that you use your macos native format. If you want to use the drive between a windows and mac machine, you can format it to fat32. To format a hard drive for compatibility of both mac and windows you can use fat32 format which has both readwrite capability on winmac respectively. Select your drive from the list and rightclick on it. How to format seagate drive for mac and pc quickly and. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. Disk utility is a useful application inside your mac system. How to format an external drive for mac compatibility. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. Most of the ssds come in default exfat format that is compatible with both windows and mac. However, you cant write or delete files from a mac. Backup disks you can use with time machine apple support.
For the time machine, you have to format the ssd from the default shipped format. To format a drive on a mac, youll need the builtin disk utility application. May 01, 2020 how to erase a disk for mac use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. Macs may also create a protected efi partition on these drives that you cant delete with the usual diskpartitioning tools.
Copy a data disk uing one optical drive using disk utility on os x how to. Select erase and ensure that the format is mac os extended journaled. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another. Macclean360 is one of the best disk cleaning and management software for mac os. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. To format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format. To format as a mac disk, choose either apfs or mac os extended journaled. So, you need another tools to do the highlevel format and permanently erase your data with safe data erasure method. This is a great thing to do when you first purchase a drive or when you are looking to. Smaller external hard drives, ssds, and usb flash keys format quickly, while a larger hard drive may take a while longer.
If you are trying to format mac external hard drive, you can go over the process step by step. Ntfs is a modern format system and windows also uses this format for itself and for other nonremovable drives by default. This format was created for microsoft and allows users to quickly plug their drives into windows machines and work with files. The operating system has an inbuilt tool, which is known as disk utility. If you want to write to ntfs formatted hard drives in mac os x, youre going to need the help of a thirdparty driver. Then, connect the seagate drive to your pc and make sure that it can be detected by windows.
Which mac file system is best for an external drive. Choose the exfat file system in the list and click start. Turn the drive on, and make sure it appears in the finder. How to format external ssd for mac time machine mashtips. May 09, 2019 even some mac specific drives are still sold with usb 3.
Use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive or other storage device. If the disk isnt using the correct format, time machine automatically prompts you to erase it when you connect it to your mac. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility. Although we know its limitation of 4gb file size only. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac. Usually, you can use windows builtin tools like diskpart to format seagate drive. These steps can be used for both internal and external drives. Some flash drives have to be formatted first before you can store files on them. Using it, you can erase a hard drive, create new partitions, and even repair your disk as well. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Now that you know which format to use, check out our guide on how to format your hard drive on. Open finder and choose applications utilities disk utility to launch.
Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. This gives you a choice of how secure youd like the erasure of the hard drive to be. The best external hard drives for mac in 2020 pcmag. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. Then select disk utility from the utilities window and click continue. Mar 03, 2020 go to this pc, under devices and drives, highlight the disk that represents your usb flash drive, rightclick and select properties. Go to the applications folder on your mac s hard drive, then go to the utilities folder, and launch disk utility. Formatting a drive in disk utility disk utility lets you format your drive using many filesystems like the three listed above. Even though mac computers are capable of reading hard drives that are formatted for windows, if you intend on using your external hdd as a bootable disk or want to use it to backup files with your mac s time machine, you must format it to be entirely mac compatible.
Opening disk management can be done a number of ways depending on your version of windows, but the easiest method is to type diskmgmt. A window will pop up where you can choose the format ntfs, fat32, or exfat. Drives cannot exceed 2tb and are limited to 4 partitions. That said, if you are using both a pc and mac in the workflow, youll need to use a different format. How to format a drive for mac and pc compatibility macyourself.