Format external hard drive for mac without erasing the distance

If you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between mac and pc is an often difficult but it doesnt need to be. I was told it needs to be extended journaled but im not sure how to reformat so that i can delete files on my external on my mac. How to format an external drive to work seamlessly. So for two years i moved files between the drive and the mac without any problems, until now when i try to use the drive with my current pc. How do i reformat my external hard drive without deleting. However, if you want to convert ntfs to exfat to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc, 3 steps are required. Regardless of the physical size, capacity and medium your external drive. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. There is a however a driver available which will allow your mac to write to ntfsformatted drives. The maximum individual file size for exfat is 16 eb. If youre just looking to make sure stuff is securely erased without nuking existing.

How to use mac formatted external hard drive on windows. Choosing disk format type while formatting external drive. But when i try to delete a file in my external hard drive it says it can. You would have to copy the data on your hard drive to your mac, then reformat it with the disk utility application. How to format a hard drive to work on mac and pc youtube. How can i reformat the internal drive and install mountain lion from an external drive. Partitioning drive without deleting files in osx fast,easy and no. The reasons for wanting to format your mac storage drive may vary depending on immediate need. Its good to have an external hard drive which can be used for backup and other purpose. If data is erased actually cleared by being overwritten by zeroes.

The problem is that by default windows uses nfts, and macs use hfs. On the left hand side of your finder, check the list of devices that are mounted. Partitioning drive without deleting files in osx fast,easy and no additional apps. Now, i have a new macbook pro and all my data is still on that external hd.

How to format an external hard drive the easy way in 2020. Or you just want to use an external hard drive on your mac exclusively this is how youll format it so that the mac can read it. To format external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. Step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. Some people may want to format a storage because they want to clean hard drive mac and others might want to install fresh os x. If youre having serious problems with your mac, macos recovery can.

Ntfs format hard disks can be connected to mac os but the drive will run with readonly permission which means you can only copy from hard disk. And we usually perform formatting in our usb or external hard. Also, if your current hard drive is more than 5 years old, it probably is nearing the end of its service life and needs to be replaced. Train monsters for battle in becoming bytes, available to download now for ios and android. Methods to recover read only external hard drive on mac. How can i format an external hard drive to be used with.

Now go to disk utility, select external hard drive and erase. How to format external hard drive and usb drive under. Again, formatting a drive will erase it completely, so make sure you have everything backed up that you want to keep. You can format an external drive in os x using disk utility and terminal.

If you really want to go the distance, you can encrypt your drive with filevault prior to. Format a mac internal or external hard drive, even a mac ssd easily. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. It should be noted this is not a reasonable approach to simply formatting a mac hard drive. Data in a hard drive one with spinning platters, not an ssd is stored as the. But in order for the computer and drive to talk to one another, the drive has to be formatted. How to get an external drive formally used with a mac to. You can erase memory stick completely either by formatting it or by using stellar. The previous defunct hd was also fat32, which i did not realize upon receiving and using. The incompatibility of the file system is the main cause of the errorexternal hard drive read only on mac. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. But what happens if that drive becomes corrupted, and you have to reformat it to make it accessible again. The operating system will prompt you to wipe the drive. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive.

I received a replacement 750gb external hard drive from western digital. This is not hard to do, and will take you only about a minutes effort. How to reformat mac external harddrive for pc march 2014. Thank you for helping us maintain cnet s great community. You have to set it up correctly before getting starting. To expand the storage capacity of your mac, you can connect one or more external drives, including solidstate or traditional movingplatter mechanisms as well as flashmemorybased thumb drives. What happens if i recover files from a formatted hard drive on the same hard drive without using an external hard drive. How to format external hard drive on mac compatible with. Choose 1 partition from the volume scheme and then click on options. How to partition your drive in osx without losing your files or using any. How to erase a disk from command line in mac os x aug 30, 2016 47 comments some mac users may require the ability to erase a disk or erase a hard drive from the command line on mac os, a task which is typically performed through the disk utility application from the gui.

Methods to completely erase memory stick recoverit wondershare. Heres how to format a drive if you are planning to use it with a mac. How to erase your startup disk in macos recovery mode. In windows just right click on the drive and select format. Learn to completely clean an external hard drive will help you accomplish these tasks easily. How to securely erase data from your mac and external drives. You do not want to format the drive though for mac. In this video tutorial, i show you how to easily format an external hard drive to work on both a mac and a pc.

Then, you can share external hard drive between mac and pc. If i have files on my hard drive how do i format it without losing all the files, pls. Erasing your hard drive before you give it away is important. In this guide, well show you how to format an external hard drive so you can not only get rid of the. Follow these instructions if you plan to share an external hard drive between pc and mac computers. Read on to know how you can erase a mac storage drive easily with the. How to format an external hard drive for use with a mac. To format a drive on a mac, youll need the builtin disk utility application. Can you reformat it without losing all of your data. If you keep your hard drives outofthebox ntfs format for all the reasons fat32 displeases, theres a workaround that will allow your mac to read and write files to the drive. I need to format my lacie hard drive 500 gb, so i can use it with time machine.

Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility. Read about it and found that id have to reformat it in mac os extended journaled. Seagate branded external drives come preformatted, some for pcs, some for macs, and some of them have special utilities allowing them to work between both without. Run the tool and opt for formattedreformatted recovery option to retrieve data from formatted external hard disk. Once disk utility is open youll see the list of available drives on the left. I saw there were ways to view and copy the data from the. Out of the box, windows can not read or write hfs drives. How can the storage of an external hard drive be cleared without a. Format to ntfs, and use ntfs3g to readwrite on mac. How should i erase my hard drive before i give it away. Someday when we are going to resell, donate or throw away our external hard drive, usb drive, memory card, we should not only format the external hard driveusb but also destroy and wipe all personal data on our device. If nothing works, use remo mac data recovery software and recover data from it before reformatting the drive. Now, i have a new macbook pro and all my data is still on.

Formatting your macbook pro involves reinstalling os x, and can be useful when your computer. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the. Do you save backups of your hard drive onto an external hard drive. Hard drive to go between mac and pc without deleting anythin. Proceed based on whether youre erasing your startup disk or some other disk. Most external hard drives you buy will come out of the box preformatted for a windows computer ntfs.

I cant edit external hard drives on macs your business. These tools are capable of removing the data in a secure manner without. Use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. I looked in disk utility and its formatted as msdot fat and remember i use mac.

If you really want to go the distance, you can encrypt your drive with filevault. Good information on all these options can be found in how to securely erase a mac ssd. How to use macos recovery to restore the operating system on. It also erases the hidden recovery and efi partitions. With my previous laptops pcs, ive always stored my data on an external hard drive. How to recover data from formatted external hard drive on mac. How to reformat to mac without losing files external. How to remove read only on mac external hard drive without formatting updated on april 4, 2020.

How to get data from formatted external hard drive on mac. Buying and using an external hd is one thing, getting the most out of it is quite another. To create this article, volunteer authors worked to edit and improve it over time. Everyone needs to securely erase data at some pointeven on a mac. A hard drive can be used on any type of computer pc or mac. So the first thing you want to do is connect the external hard. Formatting in context of usb or hard drives means deleting everything from that drive and rebuilding the file system so that we can use it with an operating system. If you want to use a different file system on your usb drive, youll need to format it. How can i reformat the internal drive and install mountain.

If you are using an external hard drive, or even an sd card or a usb stick, make sure that it is properly connected to your computer via the appropriate port. Before continuing, make sure that you have a backup of any files that you want to keep. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. If you have need for a dualformat drive, this should be pretty easy for you.

Erasing a disk or volume permanently deletes all of its files. Remove write protection from read only mac external hard drive either by editing preference file or using fuse package. That said, if you are using smaller file sizes fat32 can suffice. How to reformat an external hard drive without losing your.

Eject all the mounted ones except for the one that you have to format. If you find your external hard drive is ntfs format, thats what the cause is. Delete data from external hard drive by formatting formating the external hard drive will delete all information on a process designed for preparing the unit for use with your operating system and file system as well. Remotely wiping a mac goes a step further though and not only. How to use external hard drive on mac without formatting. Msdos fat is the most popular format amongst external hard disks, as its both readable and writable by nearly all. How to format an external drive in os x make tech easier. First, download and install yodot mac data recovery software on your mac. When trying to save large files in final cut pro, the hard drive would save numerous. If you have a mac you should format the drive for your mac first thing, before you start using it. Ntfs is a file system that is optimal for windowsbased computer. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide.

Unformat mac hard drive recover formatted hard drive on. Its hard to imagine anybody buying a used macbook and hunting for data. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Click on the erase tab, choose your external hard drive and select mac os extended journaled and then click erase then simply drag and drop your data onto your newly formatted disk. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing data. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. How to permanently delete data from external hard drive on mac. It seems they formatted the drive to the mac format, but i have no way to access the data, at least i think. For mac owners, one of the most annoyinginconvenient aspects of owning a mac is the external drive compatibility. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac.

How to format external hard drivedisk on mac using disk utility. The best partition scheme for a drive that will be used for both mac and windows is to format it exfat, and its actually easier to do it in windows than on the mac side. Formatting an external drive on your mac is quite easy, though it isnt as evident and obvious as it is on a pc. Then you want to find the solution to unformat your mac hard drive to recover your files on it. If you run into the issue of not having enough space format it to be the ex fat as. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. The good news is the disk utility built into the os x comes in handy, like a visual assistant making the process easier. External drives allow you to quickly moves large files between computers.

The first step is the only really tricky part, and its not even that tricky. I want to reinstall the system on my macbook pro because when i tried to use time machine with this hard drive where i had the previous back up it takes too long. Without too much mucking around, its now possible to create a dualformat external drive that contains a macformatted partition and a windowsformatted one. How to reformat an external hard drive without losing everything. So i think i need to format again the external hard drive. By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for mac and pc without losing any data.

How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. I had information from a broken mac backed up at best buy, but because my mac broke, now i only have a windows computer. Open the disk utility and select the external drive. So far its been suggested to me that indeed the mac did format the drive in a way that makes it mac only, and i cant reformat because i have data i first need to get to move to the new computer. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. Problem is, i cant reformat it without losingdeleting my data from it, can i.

A product key that, as i said, you would no longer use yourself, having given it. How to format a hard drive on macos macos sierra or earlier the builtin disk manager tool on mac disk utility can be used to format mac hard drive without any other third party tools. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. After all, securely erasing your data ensures your personal and private information does not end up being found and abused by someone else. How to format toshiba harddrive for mac apple community. If you want yours to seamlessly work with both macs and pcs, your external drive needs to use a filesystem that is supported by both platforms. Most or we can say almost every external hard disk comes in ntfs windows nt file system format but ntfs format is not supported by mac os. With easeus data recovery wizard the accomplished data recovery software, you can quickly recover formatted hard drive on mac. Want to format a hard drive for mac and pc compatibility.