Formatting External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc

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However there is a simple solution – you can format the drive to FAT32 or exFAT that performs better than FAT32. In the resulut, your external hard drive will work just fine with Mac and Windows. You can format your external hard drive from either the PC or Mac. Mar 15, 2018  Rather than use a Mac-formatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exFAT-formatted drives for moving data between Macs and PCs. To format the drive in Windows, right-click it in the File Explorer window and select “Format.” Choose the. Options For Having An External Hard Drive for Mac and PC Without Formatting. Use a Software Solution – You get a piece of software that sits on your Mac. Or one for your Windows PC. This software acts like a translator. It interprets what is on the external hard drive so that your Mac or PC can read and write to the drive. I've an external hard drive that I've used on Mac. Now, I'm trying to format it so that I can use it on PC instead of Mac. Unfortunately, I longer have a.

HomeHow ToMacOSHow to Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC

You can format an external hard drive or USB so that it’s compatible for both your Mac and your Windows PC.

Aug 22, 2018  While it’s convenient to purchase the hard drive that will work with your computer right out of the box, most external hard drives can also be reformatted so you’re not limited to your initial choice. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on Mac and Windows. By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for Mac and PC without losing any data. Then, you can share external hard drive between Mac and PC. You Can Convert NTFS to exFAT in 3 Steps. However, if you want to convert NTFS to exFAT to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC, 3 steps are required. How to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC? You can format the drive from either the Mac or the Windows machine. 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.

Without formatting the drive, you won’t be able to use your hard drive across different operating systems.

When you do format a hard drive, you’ll be able to access your data, media and files across any operating system.

This is extremely handy if you use a Mac and Windows operating system because you’ll be able to cross between both platforms and use your USB on anyone.

Remember that everything gets wiped off your hard drive when you format it, so you’ll need to back it up before you follow the steps down below.

Let’s get started…

Format Using MS-DOS FAT

The good thing about changing the format to FAT is that it works with all Macs and PCs, plus it uses less memory and it works faster.

The negatives of using Fat is that it can’t contain files bigger than 4GB.

To format your hard drive to FAT on Mac:

  1. Click on Spotlight and open Disk Utility
  1. Click on the USB drive you want to format
  1. Click the Erase tab at the top
  1. Choose the MS-DOS (FAT) in the format drop down
  2. Click Erase and follow the prompts
  3. Your external hard drive to now formatted

Remember that once you’ve formatted your hard drive, it will get wiped so you’ll need to backup the content on your external drive.

If you’re using a USB, you can simply drag its contents to a folder in your PCs hard drive and upload it back to your external hard drive once it has been formatted.

Format Using ExFAT

The good about formatting to exFAT is that it can handle unlimited file sizes and partition sizes.

The cons of exFAT are that you can only use it with Mac OS X 10.6.5 or newer and your Windows PC needs to be either Windows Vista SP1 or Windows 7 and above.

Another problem with exFAT is that it’s extremely slow so moving files to this drive will take several minutes.

To Format using exFAT on Windows PC:

  1. Plug in your external hard drive in Windows PC
  2. Open File Explorer
  1. Right-click on your external drive and select Format
  1. Choose exFAT in the menu
  2. Click Start
  3. Your external drive is now formatted

After formatting your drive, it’s now compatible for both your Mac and your Windows PC.

Fat is the best option to use because you can use it on any OS, however, it can only contain 4GB which may not be enough for you.

If you have a new OS system, I’d definitely recommend exFAT because it can contain unlimited data.

Bottom Line

Going into Disk Unity then clicking the erase tab is the quickest way to format an external drive on your MAC.

If you have any questions or you’re having any problems, comment down below and I’ll help you further.

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So, you just bought an external hard drive or a portable SSD and wanted to use it on your Mac. But somehow, macOS doesn’t allow you to write data to the drive.

That’s all because it’s been initialized with Windows NT File System (NTFS), which is primarily for PCs. Apple Mac machines support a different file system.

In this post, I’m going to show you how to format your external drive for a Mac compatible file system i.e. Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Just follow this easy step-by-step guide and you’re all set.

Important note: If you have useful files stored on the external drive, be sure to copy or transfer them to another safe place prior to formatting. The operation will erase all data and your files will be gone for good. You could use a recovery program like Data Rescue to retrieve them, but the odds of recovery vary.

Pro tip: If your external drive has a large volume, like mine – a 2TB Seagate Expansion. I highly recommend you also create multiple partitions. I’ll also show you how to do that below.

Most External Hard Drives Are Initiated with NTFS

During the last several years, I’ve used several removable drives, including a 500GB WD My Passport, 32GB Lexar flash drive, and a few others.

Three weeks ago, I bought a brand new 2TB Seagate Expansion to backup my MacBook Pro before I updated to the latest macOS, 10.13 High Sierra (also see those High Sierra issues I encountered).

When I connected the Seagate to my Mac, the drive icon showed up like this.

When I opened it, the default content was all there. Since I wanted to use it on Mac, I clicked the blue logo with the text “Start_Here-Mac”.

It brought me to a webpage on Seagate’s site, where it clearly indicated the drive was initially set up to work with a Windows PC. If I wanted to use it with Mac OS or Time Machine backup (which is my intent), I’ll need to format the drive for my Mac.

I then right-clicked the external drive icon on Mac desktop > Get Info. It showed this format:

Format: Windows NT File System (NTFS)

What is NTFS? I’m not going to explain here; you can read more on Wikipedia. The problem is that on macOS, you can’t work with files saved on an NTFS drive unless you use a paid app Paragon NTFS for Mac.

How to Format an External Drive to Work with Mac (from NTFS to Mac OS Extended)?

Note: The tutorial and screenshots below are based on macOS Sierra 10.12.5. They might be different if your Mac has a different version.

Specifications and features vary by model, and all images are illustrative. Please refer to specification pages for full details. Portable monitor for mac. Products may not be available in all markets. PCB color and bundled software versions are subject to change without notice.

Step 1: Open Disk Utility.

The quickest way to do this is a simple Spotlight search (click the search icon on the upper right corner), or go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.

Step 2: Highlight your external drive and click “Erase”.

Make sure your drive is connected. It should show up on the left panel under “External”. Select that disk and click the “Erase” button, the one highlighted in red in the screenshot below.

Step 3: Select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” in Format.

A new window will pop up asking which file system you’d like to format the external drive to. By default, it’s the Windows NT File System (NTFS). Select the one shown below.

Pro tip: If you want to use the external drive for both Mac and PC, you can also select “ExFAT”. Learn more about the differences between these file systems from this thread.

By the way, you can also rename your external drive.

Step 4: Wait until the erasing process is complete.

For me, it took less than a minute to format my 2TB Seagate Expansion.

You can also check to see if the format was successful. Right-click on the icon for your external drive on Mac desktop, then select “Get Info”. Under “Format”, you should see text like this:

Congratulations! Now your external drive has been formatted to be fully compatible with Apple MacOS, and you can edit, read, and write files to it as you want.

How to Partition an External Hard Drive on Mac

Formatting External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc Simultaneously

If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive (in fact, you should for better file organization), here’s a step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Highlight your drive and click “Partition” in Disk Utility.

Open the Disk Utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Make sure you select the disk icon right under “External”. If you select the one below it, the Partition option will be greyed out and become unclickable.

Step 2: Add partitions and allocate volume for each one.

After clicking “Partition”, you’ll see this window. Located on the left is a big blue circle with the name of your external drive together with its volume size. What you need to do next is click the add “+” button to increase the number of partitions on your external disk. Then allocate the desired volume to each partition. You can do that by clicking the small white circle and dragging it around.

After that, you can rename each partition and define a file system for it.

Step 3: Confirm your operation.

Once you hit “Apply”, a new window pops up asking for your confirmation. Take a few seconds to read the text description to make sure it reflects what you intend to do, then click the “Partition” button to continue.

Step 4: Wait until it says “Operation successful.”

To check whether the operation is really successful, go to your Mac desktop. You should see multiple disk icons show up. I chose to create two partitions on my Seagate Expansion — one for backup, the other for personal use. You can find more info in this post: How to Backup Mac to an External Hard Drive.

Format External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc 2018

That wraps up this tutorial article. I hope you find it helpful. As always, let me know if you have any issues during the formatting or partitioning process.