HomeHow ToMacOSHow to Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC
- Format External Drive For Mac Os
- Format External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc
- Format Hard Drive For Mac
- Format External Drive For Mac And Pc Use
- Format External Drive For Mac Backup
- Format External Drive For Mac Scheme
You can format an external hard drive or USB so that it’s compatible for both your Mac and your Windows PC.
- 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. 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.
- A hard drive can be used on any type of computer - PC or Mac. But in order for the computer and drive to talk to one another, the drive has to be formatted. This article explains. Seagate branded external drives come preformatted, some for PCs, some for Macs, and some of them have special utilities.
- The best ways to format an external drive for Windows and Mac. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with Windows and Mac. And, no: the answer isn't always FAT32.
Select the MBR or GPT partition table format and click OK to create a partition table for the disk. Right-click in the unallocated space on the initialized disk and select New Simple Volume. Use the wizard to create a partition with the NTFS or FAT32 file system. The drive will now be formatted for use by Windows systems.
Without formatting the drive, you won’t be able to use your hard drive across different operating systems.
![External External](/uploads/1/3/4/0/134055059/840879876.jpg)
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:
- Click on Spotlight and open Disk Utility
Format External Drive For Mac Os
- Click on the USB drive you want to format
- Click the Erase tab at the top
- Choose the MS-DOS (FAT) in the format drop down
- Click Erase and follow the prompts
- 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.
Format External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc
https://iofpxdi.weebly.com/vba-for-mac.html. 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:
- Plug in your external hard drive in Windows PC
- Open File Explorer
- Right-click on your external drive and select Format
- Choose exFAT in the menu
- Click Start
- 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.
Format Hard Drive For Mac
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/3/4/0/134055059/927719743.jpg)
If you have a new OS system, I’d definitely recommend exFAT because it can contain unlimited data.
Bottom Line
Format External Drive For Mac And Pc Use
Going into Disk Unity then clicking the erase tab is the quickest way to format an external drive on your MAC.
Format External Drive For Mac Backup
If you have any questions or you’re having any problems, comment down below and I’ll help you further.
Format External Drive For Mac Scheme
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