Reformatting drive for mac

Choose either apfs or mac os extended journaled to format as a mac volume. How to reinstall macos from macos recovery apple support. Click on install to install the latest operating system that was on your mac. Start the disk utility, located under applications utilities. A lot of people including you, storing important data on seagate external hard drive instead of on your pcmac hard drive. This post will teach you how to format your macs hard disk and fix common errors. For most reasons to erase, you should erase the disk, which also erases all volumes on that disk. Yes, its recommended to format the drive on a windows. Erase and reformat a storage device in disk utility on mac apple.

Click the erase button or tab, then complete these fields. Some people are asking for a way to format a hard drive for mac. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. Macs may also create a protected efi partition on these drives that you cant delete with the. However, you need to reformat external hard drive or internal ssdhdd if it was partitioned before. The best way to do it is with a drive formatted as fat32. External hard drive compatible with mac and pc without. Then, select your hard drive from the left sidebar.

Enter a name for the disk or volume, such as macintosh hd. Learn how to use macos recovery to reinstall the mac operating system on your builtin drive or an external drive. Reformatting your drive mac are you finding that you are unable to drag documents and folders to your external hard drive. A jump drive, or usb flash drive, offers convenient portability to your data.

How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Using an external drive between mac and windows computers can be a hassle, since you constantly have to reformat it to fit which computer youre using it on. Select your hard drive machintosh hd, when asked to select your disk. You can format an external hard drive or thumb drive to work seamlessly with both mac and windows by using the exfat file system. Any hard drive can be formatted for mac and here is how you do it. Reformatting an external hard drive for mac step 1. So if you are formatting a drive that has already been used, be sure to copy any files you will ever want to see again onto a computer or backup drive. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. How to share an external drive between a mac and a pc. Reformatting an external hard drive for use with mac osx is not as difficult as it might seem. How to reformat passport external hard drive from read only to read and write for use with mac computersimportant.

Including how to format a drive to be used on a mac and a pc and. 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. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. Formatting and reformatting a drive erases everything. A solid state drive is primarily used on mac machine. So how do you make an external hard drive compatible with mac and pc without reformatting it. However, unless its been designed for use with a mac, it wont be formatted using macos preferred file system either mac os extended or apfs, depending on which version of macos youre running. To format a drive on a mac, youll need the builtin disk utility application.

How to open an external drive thats not showing on mac. Moving files from macformatted external hard drive to pc i have an external hard drive where i moved all of my mac photos to. This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only. Click on reinstall macos or reinstall os x where applicable to reinstall the operating system that came with your mac. In a few simple steps you are ready to go and can save your backup files to the external drive, keeping your information safe and giving you peace of mind. How to reformat a jump drive on a mac your business. Okay, so you may have a lot of files that you want to get rid of. How to format an external drive for mac compatibility. In this video we look at the process of formatting a hard drive, flash drive.

To start up from macos recovery, turn on your mac and immediately press and hold one of the following. The reason is perhaps that seagate external hard drive has been well known for a long time as one of the most reliable drives for storing data. Nowadays, when you buy a usb drive, you can use it right out of the box with your mac. Give the drive a descriptive name and leave the default settings. Macos external drive not showing not reformatting fix. To save important data on the hard drive, please backup disk beforehand. Mac os x on a macbook in your office and want to clear all the data off of the computer, you can use disk utility to reformat the laptops internal hard drive. Once disk utility is open youll see the list of available drives on the left. Looking to share an external hard drive between a mac and pc. How to erase a disk for mac use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. Heres how to access the contents on a usb drive that wont open on your mac. I now have a pc with windows 10, but i cant find a way to save the photos onto my computer.

Note that using a drive frequently between windows and mac could increase the. If you havent used your hard drive in a while, or you just bought a new one, you may have to reformat it to be compatible with your computer. Reformatting 3tb wd my book for mac to windows wd community. How to format an external hard drive for mac youtube. Use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive or other storage device. Once youve double, triple, and quadruplechecked your backups. After realizing that you can reformat wd hard drive to fat32 or exfat to make it compatible with mac os x and still can be used under windows, it is time to check out how to reformat wd hard drive for mac and pc in windows successfully. You can select the exfat format when using the disk. If you want to use a different file system on your usb drive, youll need to format it. Please note that reformatting the drive will erase all the information on the drive. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac.

Whether youre selling your computer, trying a new operating system, or setting up an external drive for backups, sometimes you need to completely erase and format a hard drive. Plug your hd into the mac and open disk utility, which can be accessed by searching for it in spotlight. How to format hard drive and fix disk format errors on your mac errors can damage your hard disk and prevent it from functioning properly. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Heres a tutorial on how to format a drive on a windows computer. Many of these drives offer a keyring attachment hole, so you will never be without your data. Checklist for reformatting your mac os x asian efficiency. Hello all, i am switching completely from mac to windows. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. The hard drive is recognized in disk management, but does not appear under devices. You can choose the best method you think will works for you.

Reformatting hdd when i bought my lacie drive it came with its own format utility for mac and pc formats. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Find the name of the drive in the left side of the utilities window and select it. Reformatting a hard drive is often done just to erase all of its contents. Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the information provided. How to format hard drive and fix disk format errors on mac. When formatting a hard drive with disk utility, make sure to select the. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. In disk utility on your mac, erase and reformat a storage device to use with a mac. Connect the external drive or the usb drive to the mac. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive step 1 back up your files. If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. Use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other. For school or work projects, this portability means you can work from home, work or.

Both aaron and i have recently decided to reformat our macbooks and start from scratch. This is a simple procedure and is achieved the same way for all drive types and through. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with. If a wireless network is available, you can choose it from the wi. There would be any number of similar utilities on the net i would have thought try googling it maybe.

This stepbystep guide will show you how to format an external hard drive on a mac, and how to partition a drive on a mac. 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. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Two ways for reformatting wd hard drive for mac and pc. Before using an external hard drive on a mac, you should format it using disk utility. Back to the main topic, below is a step by step instruction on how to formatreformat a hard drive for mac os. In this video i help you guys convert your mac only external hdd into a windows compatible one. You can also open a finder window, select applications in the sidebar, and head to utilities disk utility. How you format a mac hard drive is entirely dependent on what kind of drive you plan on formatting. No matter what motivation you have, the question, how to reformat a hard drive, is much more important now.

For instructions on how to format your hard drive on a mac, please reference the following links. Moving files from macformatted external hard drive to pc. The easiest way to do that is hit cmd and the spacebar at. Your exfatformatted drive or partition can now be used for both windows and mac. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. 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. 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. Should i just wait until i get the new laptop and attempt to reformat the drive on it. Use the exfat file system and never format your external.