Format a hard drive for mac

How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. But dont forget to back up your important data in the drive into a safe place before formatting. Make your mac feel like new again with a fresh install of os x. In this article, we will introduce 5 disk formatting tools for windows and mac to help you securely format hard drive usb flash drive or memory card on a pc or a 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.

In this video we look at the process of formatting a hard drive, flash drive, or ssd on an apple computer. Uses the mac format journaled hfs plus to protect the integrity of the hierarchical file system. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Change the partition layout from current to 1 partition.

The operating system has an inbuilt tool, which is known as disk utility. It will likely already be formatted, either for use. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. It stands for extended file allocation table and is developed by microsoft. Click on the erase option from the four options available in the main window. How to format a hard drive on windows or mac avast.

If you desire encryption, then select mac os extended journaled, encrypted format instead. Remember that you should not install the application on the formatted drive. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Before a hard drive can read or write data, it must first be formatted, or erased and reconfigured. 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. Heres how to format a drive if you are planning to use it with a mac. Here are two outstanding mac hard drive format software tools you can rely on. When the application is open, select the files you want to retrieve from the formatted drive.

The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. They might be different if your mac has a different version. You can choose whatever name you want, and you should choose guid partition map for the. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar. Furthermore, youll dive into what best format you can use for your mac hard drive and what causes you to format a hard drive.

If you want to format a hard drive or usb flash drive on your computer, disk formatting tool is the best choice. In the partition information box, enter an appropriate name for. Since formatting an external hard drive will erase all of its files if you wish to save them you must back them up copy. Dont click the format disk button or windows will erase the contents of the driveclick cancel. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac.

Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. So, whether you wish to format the internal hard drive, external drive, or a usb flash drive, the procedure is the same for all. This insures that you will have a compatible hard drive with. If it does not you will need to rightclick and delete the volume first. Now, you can follow the steps to be highlighted below to get it successfully formatted. This is a simple procedure and is achieved the same way for all drive types and through. 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. This is a great thing to do when you first purchase a drive or when you are looking to.

In the main interface, right click the partition on that need. Choose one of the following mac os extended file system formats for compatibility with mac computers using macos 10. 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. When you format your hard drive, you can clean internal as well as. Select your startup drive on the left typically macintosh hd, switch to the erase tab and choose mac os. Verify that the correct hard drive is selected in the left column. Macclean360 is one of the best disk cleaning and management software for mac os. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them. Yet when you connect a macformatted drive to windows, youll be informed that you need to format the disk in drive x. Use the security options to format a previously used hard drive. In this post, youll learn how to format a hard drive for your mac.

If you are having a hard time using the command line, try the disk utility app, which is simpler and uses the gui. Choose view show all devices from the menu bar in disk utility. How to format a hard drive in mac os x connecting external hard drives. Hard drive format software for mac mac disk format software. Apr 30, 2020 to format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. Though, here are some of the most commonly used and compatible formats. In the format partition section, select the file system. 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.

How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop. Major formats of hard drive for mac and pc over the time, more than a hundred different kinds of file systems and formats have been developed for mac and pc hard drive. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. Heres 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. Then select disk utility from the utilities window and click continue. 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. Please remember that all data will be deleted from the drive, so make sure you have made a backup.

How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. For some mac models, the partition option would be greyed out in disk utility. Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. 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. Here are the steps to partition an external hard drive for mac and windows pc, which is a little tricky.

To format a hard drive on your mac, follow these instructions. As a comprehensive data erasure tool, aweeraser for mac can help you securely and permanently format a hard drive or device under mac os. It is the fastest way to format an external hard drivedevice under mac os. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities.

Use the disk utility application to erase the drive. 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. File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple. Step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. 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. Once youve unboxed your new drive, connect it to your mac. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. Once disk utility is open youll see the list of available drives on the left. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another. Which mac file system is best for an external drive. Using it, you can erase a hard drive, create new partitions, and even repair your disk as well. In this post, youll learn how to format an external drive to a mac compatible file system and recover files from a reformatted hard drive.

Just like windows, macos also gives us a seamless option to format hard drive for mac and pc. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. 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. Formatting a hard drive or ssd is the same as buying a new hard drive since the process erases all the data in one fell swoop. Before using an external hard drive on a mac, you should format it using disk utility. 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. The mac os x extended volume format is optimal for macs. Select disk utility, and then choose the drive to format. You can run it on your mac, and use it to format external hard drive or device on your mac. 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.

All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your mac. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. Download disk formatting software for mac doyourdata. How to format an external drive for mac launch disk utility. How to format an external drive for mac compatibility. Mac os x installation basics sata drive seagate support us. Formatting a drive will erase all data and partitions on the disk. So, we suggest that its better to use a pc to partition an external hard drive for macos and windows. Aug 30, 2019 its easy to format an external hard drive. How to format a hard drive for mac internal, external or flash.

The easiest way to do that is hit cmd and the spacebar at. In the partition layout dropdown menu, select 1 partition. Give the drive a descriptive name and leave the default settings. Sep 26, 2018 need to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. External hard drives use either spinning disks or solid memory to save your files. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods revealed. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. Click the erase tab, choose a volume format from the dropdown menu and then type a name for the drive. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac youtube. When prompted, select the mac os extended journaled format.

Formatting is a very simple procedure which is operated in a similar way for all sorts of storage media. Select the external hard drive on the lefthand side. How to format a hard drive using the command prompt toms. If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. Launch disk utility and then click to select the external hard drive listed on the left.

Select your macs hard drive in the lefthand column, to reveal more options, then select the partition button. Aug 30, 2016 you can, however, format a windows hard drive from a mac if you connect the windows hard drive to the mac and format it through disk utility, or the command line as described above. The sidebar now shows your disks devices and any containers. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac.