How to format a hard drive for mac internal, external or. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Mac os extended journaled this is the default file system format for. Open airport utility, then select your base station and click edit to view its settings. In case you miss anything necessary, you can also have some basic checks as following when you are unable to mount an external hard drive on your mac computer. Uses the mac format journaled hfs plus to protect the integrity of the hierarchical file system. Autocad installation on casesensitive volumes is not supported. Whenever i tried to open it, windows showed me that my external hard drive was not formatted and asked me to format it. Thus, when you are planning to use the same hard drive on any other os, particularly macos, it is always suggested to format your hard drive for mac. But if you didnt foresee that, you may have formatted your drive with apples hfs plus, which windows cant read by default. If you work solely on a mac, but need to send files to someone working on a pc, your external hard drive needs to be set up for both operating systems. Either way there is a solution to having an existing external hard drive for mac and pc.
The most recommended format is apfs or mac os extended journaled. Use the wizard to create a partition with the ntfs or fat32 file system. Before a hard drive can read or write data, it must first be formatted, or erased and reconfigured. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac.
If the builtin disk came apfsformatted, dont change it to mac os extended. You can, however, format a windows hard drive from a mac if you connect the. If you know youre going to use a drive on both mac and windows, you should use the exfat file system, which is compatible with both. Now that you know which format to use, check out our guide on how to format your hard drive on a mac. The drive will now be formatted for use by windows systems. All your data will be destroyed during the reformatting p. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing. When you erase a drive on your mac, should you use mac os extended journaled, msdos fat, exfat, or apfs. There will be no space wasted by protected mac partitions. Your exfatformatted drive or partition can now be used for both windows and mac. Mac os extended journaled is the normal recomended way to format your drives, internal and external. However, ntfs is not fully compatible with mac computers.
Hard drive not showing up when your drive is not mounting on mac, here are two solutions to help you. 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. In a format which isnt case sensitive, theyre considered to be the same. External hard drive compatible with mac and pc without. Are you formatting the disk that came built into your mac. How to share an external drive between a mac and a pc pcworld. After formatting the disc, your partition should no longer be greyed. Format or erase a mac hard drive all formats explained. Therfore, you can connect backup plus desktop to a windows pc without formatting the hard drive. For instance, is the hard drive internal or external. Rightclick in the unallocated space on the initialized disk and select new simple volume. Are you about to install macos high sierra or later on the disk. I realise that but i dont understand what relevance that is to formatting a hard drive.
Partition wd my passport for mac, teach yourself in 10 steps. I hope you enjoyed my article on how to make an external hard drive compatible with mac and pc without reformatting. What can you do when mistakenly formatting a hard drive. You have to set it up correctly before getting starting. What is the difference between mac os extended journaled and the same format case sensitive please.
Choose either apfs or mac os extended journaled to format as a mac volume. If you need to use 1 thing else, click on on the formatting choices to open the dropdown window. In other words, if i reformatted, say, my external hdd as case sensitive what. Choose disk utility from the utilities menu, then choose the faulty drive and click on first aid. This means that you can read, write or access the journaled mac os extended volumes on a machine with mac os extended file system that does not have a journaling feature. Then, you can share external hard drive between mac and pc.
Note that using a drive frequently between windows and mac could increase the. My hard drive in my macbook completely broke a few weeks ago didnt have much on it thankfully, so i bought a new hard drive and replaced the old one. Whether you go the software or hardware route depends on your situation. Western digital manufactures two types of the wd my passport hard drive. Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. Easy guide to formatting external hard disks and pen drives for.
By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for mac and pc without losing any data. On mac computers, use the finder app to browse and manage files on your computer and external hard drives. Your backup plus desktop is formatted as ntfs for compatibility with windows out of the box. How to fix external hard drive not mounting on mac computer. Named the top partition mac and chose the format mac os extended journaled, named the bottom windows and chose the format ntsf. How to format an external drive for mac all things how. Click the erase button or tab, then complete these fields. Installed a new debate 500gb 7200 rpm 32mb cache sata ssd hybrid hard drive on a mid 2009 macbook pro unibody. However, in that case its not necessary to open disk utility from. If the drive is not formatted, you may get a message saying that the drive. External hard drive not formatted you need to format the disk in drive before you can use it recently, i ran into a problem while accessing my seagate 160 gb external hard drive.
Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. When formatting partitions, windows 7s disk management utility wont let. Why wont windows recognize an macos partitioned external. However, if you want to convert ntfs to exfat to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc, 3 steps are required.
Theres also the option of macos extended journaled, encrypted which is a. Hard drives, which are the primary storage devices on our computer, need to be formatted before we can use them. In case you forgot to backup files before formatting the external drive. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Since you only used time machine so far and windows couldnt even access the drive i assume you have no problem with. Follow onscreen prompts to choose mac os extended journaled file system and allow the disk to format. That was my first experience with a hard drive that was not listed as. External hard drives use either spinning disks or solid memory to save your files. Journaled if you have a mac which is not updated to macos high sierra. For this reason, a macformatted hard drive is not directly compatible, nor readable by a windows computer. With exfat, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years. Use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive. Complete guide to external hard drive format error easeus.
What is mac hard drive journaling mac data recovery blog. Convert casesensitive formatted hard disk without re. Pick the right file system for your macs internal or. Enter a name for the disk or volume, such as macintosh hd. Now, i have a new macbook pro and all my data is still on that external hd. Heres how to format a drive using a mac including how to format a drive for. The best format for external hard drives if you want to format your external hard drive to work with mac and windows computers, you should use exfat. How to share an external drive between a mac and a pc.
Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with. Why wont windows recognize an macos partitioned external hard drive. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. Backup disks you can use with time machine apple support. Here comes the cure imyfone anyrecover a onestop solution to recover deleted, lost or. Basic suggestions on external hard drive not mounting problem. Seagate backup plus is preformatted exfat for compatibility with both mac and windows computers. Pick the right file system for your macs internal or external storage there are nearly as many ways to format a disk as ways to skin a cat. How you format a mac hard drive is entirely dependent on what kind of drive you plan on formatting.
Some people are asking for a way to format a hard drive for mac. This could be apfs, or it may be mac os extended journaled, relying on how the drive is presently formatted and whether or not you might be utilizing macos high sierra or an older model of the working system. Years ago, i used to format my hard disks casesensitive option format. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. So, whether you wish to format the internal hard drive, external drive, or a usb flash drive, the procedure is the same for all. Once disk utility is open youll see the list of available drives on the left. There are nearly as many ways to format a disk as ways to skin a cat.
Fat32 offers no security and its more susceptible to disk errors. When formatting your external hard drive, simply set the scheme to guid partition. Lets take a look at the different types of formats, and which are best for video production. Connect the external drive to the mac via usb or thunderbolt port. Your browser does not currently recognize any of the video formats available. Pick the right file system for your macs internal or external storage. Make sure that the usb drive is formatted for time machine. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Can a windows computer read a macformatted hard drive. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Formatted to windows but need to reformat to mac help wd.
Boot mac into recovery mode to fix it, boot your mac into recovery mode already explained earlier. Now im not too sure how to set this new hard drive up as in putting an os on it and formatting it correctly im not concerned with getting any of my old data back on it, i just want to set. This is the only file system on which autocad for mac 2011 through 2017 will run. How to recover data from formatted external hard drive on mac. File systems compatible with windows include fat32 and ntfs why not. Whether you decide to partition the disk or not, the options button lets you set the type. How to format hard drive and fix disk format errors on mac. Formatted to windows but need to reformat to mac help. A casesensitive format considers capitalization, so abc and abc are considered to be different names. Ive just got a new hard drive but my mac wont accept it as boot drive unless its formatted in a macos readable format its simply not readable by the volatile system which is whats run. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. If you wish to change to mac os extended journaled. So youre using disk utility to partition your new hard drive when youre.
Mac os extended journaled case sensitive apple community. This is an article for mac, it is erasing a hard drive from a mac command line, it is not a windows tutorial. Formatting is a very simple procedure which is operated in a similar way for all sorts of storage media. The other type is ntfs formatted and is simply called wd my passport no for mac after the title whether you have the wd my passport for mac or have bought the ntfs version they both. Read about it and found that id have to reformat it in mac os extended journaled.
Mac os extended journaled or hfs plus is a file system developed by apple inc. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. If you want to format your external hard drive to work with mac and windows computers, you should use exfat. How to format a hard drive with ease in windows 1087.
The formatting decides the way the files are stored on your hard disk. With my previous laptops pcs, ive always stored my data on an external hard drive. If you need to erase your disk before installing high sierra or later for the first time on that disk, choose mac os extended journaled. In this video, we explain how to format or erase a hard drive or usb flash drive on mac os x. The disk drive in the system is formatted with a file system other than mac os extended journaled or it is formatted as casesensitive. How to format an external drive for mac launch disk utility. File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple palaikymas. I always format a new drive as mac os extended journaled, immediatly and before use.
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