Format hdd for mac using windows

Mar 15, 2018 windows cant normally read macformatted drives, and will offer to erase them instead. Dec 29, 2015 how to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. How to use diskpart to clean and format a drive not. How to wipe a hard drive in windows 10 and macos techradar. If you dont know how to format a hard drive or an external hard drive, youve come to the right place. If youre planning on just using the drive in windows, select ntfs. Read this stepwise tutorial and learn how to format hdd for mac and windows like a pro. A drive can be formatted with exfat using either a windows or a mac computer. After disk management opens, which might take several seconds, look for. In the disk utility app on your mac, choose view show all devices. If youre looking to dualboot with linux or run windows boot camp, you can format the partition as msdos fat, however, these programs. May 02, 2015 old windows xp desktops and laptops can be turned into offline media centers for a family room, play computers for a childs bedroom, recipe holders for the kitchen, etc.

Windows cannot see the mac drive since its in the hfs format, windows uses ntfs, and the only common format. How to format a disk or drive in windows 10 format is the process of preparing a data storage device such as a hard disk drive, solidstate drive, or usb flash drive for initial use to accept windows files. To format a hard drive using diskpart, you need to follow the commands below carefully. If you are not comfortable with the previous method. Partition a hard drive for macos time machine and windows. Disk utility in macos high sierra or later can erase most disks and volumes for mac using either the newer apfs apple file system format or the older mac os extended format, and it automatically chooses a compatible format for you.

Jul 15, 2009 format a drive for mac os x and windows. Though the default hard disk file system also known as format of windows and mac are different, there should be some ways to format an external drive for both mac and pc. How to format a hard drive using the command prompt. For instance, you might wish to format as sd card, pen drive, external hard disk, etc. 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. Feb 03, 2020 disk utility in macos high sierra or later can erase most disks and volumes for mac using either the newer apfs apple file system format or the older mac os extended format, and it automatically chooses a compatible format for you.

Connect the hdd to a mac and format the drive as fat32 and then connect the same mac hdd to windows and convert it to ntfs. Heres how to format a drive if you are planning to use it with a mac. These steps will show the process using windows 10, but will be similar for windows 7 and 8. 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 part 3. How to format a hard drive using the command prompt toms. Plug in your external hdd to the usb port of your computer then go to my computer find your external drive rightclick it and select format. Sep 23, 2019 however, if you find yourself on a scenario where your device imac, macbook pro, air, mac pro or mini is not responding and you happen to have a windows device, then you can still be able to make a usb bootable installation media for your mac os x to reinstall the operating system using the recovery assistant. Give your settings a final lookover and click apply. If you want to share files that you have backed up between mac and pc, now please transfer these files back to external hard drive. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods revealed.

Once the set up is complete, mount your drive and it will be visible on file explorer. How to format a drive for mac and pc compatibility posted by ant on march 11th, 2012 43 comments if you have an external hard drive or usb flash drive that youd like to use on both macs and windows pcs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. I understand that you are facing issues with windows 10. How to partition and format your hard drive in windows pcworld. If you want to use the drive to transfer files between linux, mac, and windows computers, as well as most devices that support usb storage, select fat. From what i understand, windows doesnt always like the way mac s do the formatting on some larger drives, though, so give it a try and if your windows machines dont like it, just format the drive with windows. A system repair disc can be created from any working windows 7 computer and can then be used to write zeros to any drive using the included format command, including the primary drive, no matter what windows operating system is on the computer.

Transferring data from a mac to pc via an external hard drive. Feb 08, 2012 to partition and format your drive, you can use windows builtin tool called disk management. Save any files you need to another volume before formatting. How to use the format command to write zeros to a hard drive. Dont forget to check out all of the hard drives and storage solutions. Nov, 2019 if you dont know how to format a hard drive or an external hard drive, youve come to the right place. Choose this format if the size of the disk is 32 gb or less. Click the scheme popup menu, then choose master boot record. But its a good idea to also create a third partition on your disk that both macos and windows 10 can use. How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. How to convert mac hard drive to windows without losing data. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. Then click the second partition, name it mac, and change its format to mac os extended journaled.

Connect your external hard drive to your windows 10 pc. Aug 22, 2019 how to format hard drive on mac and pc. Mac can read all the file system formats including windows. You can select to use a fat, fat32, exfat, ntfs, or refs file system when formatting.

For instance, is the hard drive internal or external. The first step in repurposing a windows xp computer is to reformat the hard drive, and this is how it should be done. May 29, 2018 its not a tough task to format your drive with common file system for mac and windows. Nov 19, 2015 now that we know the good and bad about every file system, let see how to format a drive in windows, mac, and linux. Some people are asking for a way to format a hard drive for mac. To make it work in windows youll need to remove the existing partitions and create a new partition that is recognised by windows. Yes, connecting an external hard drive or usb flash key to a mac will generally read and work fine as is because the mac can easily read other filesystem formats, including windows msdos, fat, fat32, exfat, and ntfs formats, but unless you intend on using the drive between a windows and mac machine, formatting it to be entirely mac compatible. If you plan on using an external drive with both macs and pcs, you should format the disk with the exfat file system instead. How to convert mac only external hdd to windows compatible. Open disk management, the hard drive manager included with all versions of windows. If youre just using the drive for your linux computer, select ext4. Formatting a disk or volume erases all the files on it. There will be no space wasted by protected mac partitions.

Format your external drive with exfat for both mac and. A system repair disc does not install windows 7 and you will not need a product key to use a system repair disc. Then i would suggest you to search for a third party software which directly converts the to ntfs format for windows operating system. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. Now, click on the top partition, name it windows, and change its format to msdos. Dont click the format disk button or windows will erase the contents of the driveclick cancel.

It is time to learn how to format your external hard drive or other external drives to a common file system for mac and windows. You just need to mount your disk and access all of your files. Dec, 2019 you can format the external hard drive or usb drive to make it compatible with both mac and windows machines. 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.

The format is not used for the internal hard drives in mac. To format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format. How to format new hard drive on windows 10 windows central. Rightclick in the unallocated space on the initialized disk and select new simple volume. 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.

Here, you will learn three ways to format a hard drive in windows 10 by using disk management, a partition management software and diskpart in command prompt. To format hard drive for mac and windows without data loss, we suggest using minitool partition wizard and its convert ntfs to fats32 function. How to format an external drive to work seamlessly. A complete solution do you wish to format hard drive for mac and pc, but cant find a solution. Therefore, make sure that the file system is supported by your mac or windows.

Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. How to open mac format usb devce in windows youtube. How to quickly make a mac os x bootable usb on windows. You can apply the thirdparty solution to format fat32 in windows 10 even when there is no fat32 option in windows 10 explorer or disk management. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. Rather than use a macformatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exfatformatted drives for moving data between macs and pcs. This is because the ps4 uses a format not recognised by windows. Sep 26, 2018 windows pc and mac use different filesystems.

How to format usb drive on windows 10 using command prompt. I thought it would be pretty helpful if you made a video showing how to format a disc to run on all oss using mac os x. At this point, you can proceed to the next section to format your mac backup partition. Mar 19, 2020 how to format a hard drive in windows follow these easy steps to format a hard drive in windows 10, windows 8, windows 7, windows vista, or windows xp. In fact, aomei partition assistant can provide you with more functions. Next, open a command prompt window as administrator. 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. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp.

Usb drives and external hard drives use the windows fat32 to format for compatibility. Format usb drive on windows 10 using command prompt run the command prompt as administrator. Your old external windows pc drive will work great on the mac. To use it, download hfs for windows here and install on your pc. Apple has built os x yosemite and some previous os x releases with the ability to read from those disks just fine. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. Format external hard disk drive for mac os and windows. This also allows you to restore time machine backups on windows. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac.

Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Bonus tip data recovery from formatted hard drive on mac. How to format hard drives on windows, mac and linux. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. 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. For example, in the screenshot below, the mac formatted drive is disk 2. This thing is still unknown for many users but doesnt worry its not complex.

Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility. Apr 14, 2020 finally, an exfat partition will be created on your external hard disk so that it could be shared between mac and windows pc. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. Apple now uses apfs or the apple file system and windows uses the ntfs file system for its internal drives.

If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. From what i understand, windows doesnt always like the way macs do the formatting on some larger drives, though, so give it a try and if your windows machines dont like it, just format the drive with windows. In general, windows builtin tools disk management and diskpart can format drive to exfat easily. To do this, search cmd in the windows 10 search box, rightclick on the command prompt search result and select run as administrator.

How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. Click the format popup menu, then choose one of the following. How to format a hard drive using the command prompt tom. By default, macs use hfs, while pcs use ntfs, which are not compatible with each other. In disk utility on your mac, you can format an external disk for a windows computer. How you format a mac hard drive is entirely dependent on what kind of drive you plan on formatting. Follow the windows 10 fat32 format tutorial to format hdd to fat32 or format external hard drive to fat32 in windows 10. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Note that using a drive frequently between windows and mac could increase the chances of file. Mac os x and windows can both read and write to disks in the fat or exfat format. First, note the number of the disk in the disk management window. If you are a personal user, you can try its professional edition. You can format it using windows builtin tools or third party partition formatting tool.

Use the wizard to create a partition with the ntfs or fat32 file system. Dec 02, 2019 windows cant read mac drives as they both use different file systems. In this video i help you guys convert your mac only external hdd into a windows compatible one. To format external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. In the sidebar, select the disk you want to format to use with windows computers. Here well take how to format hard drive using cmd on windows 10 as an example to show you to detail steps. In the main interface, right click the partition on that need. Both fat32 and exfat can be used on windows pc and mac. Formatting a hard drive can change the file system to make it compatible with your computers. Plug the disk into a windows vista sp1 or windows 7 computer. For instance, it allows you to delete partition, resize partition and wipe partition etc.

Open the disk management tool by rightclicking this pc manage disk management. Thus, if you wish to format ntfs on mac, then you must be using an external storage unit. Nov, 2019 a system repair disc can be created from any working windows 7 computer and can then be used to write zeros to any drive using the included format command, including the primary drive, no matter what windows operating system is on the computer. Jan 27, 2019 mac instructions above will now work for exfat. Once disk utility is open youll see the list of available drives on the left. Because mac os x mountain lion does not natively support writing to an external ntfs drive, you must erase your hard disk and format it using. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac. You can format the drive on your mac or windows computer.

Whether you are trying to backup mac to an external hard drive, wipe out any personal information and sell the computer, or even use a new operating system, you need to format the hard drive on your mac or pc. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. While formatting, you would be asked to pick a file system for the disk. Apr 17, 2020 to format external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. Disk fixer how to use diskpart to clean and format a drive not working on windows 10 if your computer has a drive issue, it could just be a logical problem, which you can quickly fix using. If you move a hard drive between the two operating systems, heres what you need to know. From all above, you can have a general idea of fat32 and exfat file system.

Starting clean how to format new hard drive on windows 10 formatting is an essential task before starting to use a new drive, and in this guide, well show you how to do it on windows 10. As both windows and mac provide native solutions to format hard drive, you should avoid using any unreliable thirdparty tool. If you want to save larger files, youll need to create a second, dedicated space using a format optimized for macos. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Opening disk management can be done a number of ways. You will learn how to format the external hard disk which has deafult ntfs format, to make it compatible with mac os. You can repartition and format your hard drives in windows using the disk management tool. Format external hard drive with windows builtin tool.

If you are techy and use windows and mac computers frequently, then you might need to transfer data between mac and pc. You can format the external hard drive or usb drive to make it compatible with both mac and windows machines. How to format ps4 hard drive for pc in windows 1087. How to format a mac hdd to win ntfs using win 10 microsoft. I will leave windows instructions below for the benefit of windows users. The drive will now be formatted for use by windows systems. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. Jan 17, 2019 starting clean how to format new hard drive on windows 10 formatting is an essential task before starting to use a new drive, and in this guide, well show you how to do it on windows 10. In the sidebar, select the disk you want to format to use with. This wikihow teaches you how to change an external usb hard drives format on windows and mac computers. Jul 19, 2019 ntfs is a commonly used file format for windows systems and external devices. The latter requires to you to use a command line interface, while the former uses a graphical user interface.