Then, you can share external hard drive between mac and pc. A quick format only deletes the organizational structure of the files on the drive, without removing the actual files. First, back up the data on the macformatted drive if you have anything important on it. How to format a drive without deleting files using free. Open finder and go to applicationsutilities and doubleclick on disk utility. How to reformat an external hard drive without losing everything. Dec 29, 2015 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. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for mac and pc without losing any data. The maximum individual file size for exfat is 16 eb.
Now, your external hard drive is formatted and is as good as new. The below steps for formatting external drive is for windows 10 and also. However, you need to make doubly sure that you complete a quick format. Erasing a disk or volume permanently deletes all of its files. Formatting may take few hours to wipe out the existing data, but the process can be hasslefree if you get to know about stepwise instructions of how to format an external hard drive.
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. It is the fastest way to format an external hard drivedevice under mac os. Jan 10, 2020 to format an external hard drive, plug in the device into system or a wall outlet. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. Convert formatted drive from mac to windows info remo. The most recommended tool to change the format of external hard drive without data loss is by using systools ntfs fromatted hard drive data recovery software. 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. Fix external hard drive read only error on mac without losing data. Apr 14, 2020 by this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for mac and pc without losing any data. Wait for few minutes until the data are securely removed from the disk drive. You will see two fields where you need to supply the details. Files you have deleted are still remain on your external hard drive and can be recovered by 19 free data recovery softwares. Whether its a hard drive in an older mac or an external hard drive, if it is accessible, you can use disk utility to securely erase it. This process wont actually convert the file system.
The best news is that most devices included mac computers can read and write from fat32 devices. Before lion, you had to boot from a cd or dvd system disk or a thirdparty utility, like disk warrior, or from an external drive with os x installed. How to format an external hard drive on windows formatting a hard drive on windows is a simple affair, especially if you leave everything as default. How to reformat an external hard drive without losing your. How to repair corrupted external hard drive without losing.
How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. For some mac models, the partition option would be greyed out in disk utility. Select the readonly external hard drive on the left window. How to wipe a hard drive in windows 10 and macos techradar.
New apple devices will be formatted with apfs while old mac drives can use the hfs file system. This is secure than the simple partition and you cant right click and format the drive. How to reformat an external hard drive without losing your data. Apr 12, 2020 how to change hard drive from read only mac without erasing we use our external hard drives to save our precious files, from images and videos to program files and documents. You can use windows own disk management or use a third party disk partition tool to do this operation without data loss. Hard drive to go between mac and pc without deleting. Know how to change format of external hard drive without. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. Connect the drive you want to securely delete, then click it in the sidebar. Here is how you retrieve your data after reformatting your disk. Before continuing, make sure that you have a backup of any files that you want to keep.
Low level formatting is the first process of wiping out data and existing files in the hard disk devices and at the high level, a new file system is generated. How to reformat to mac without losing files external drives. Instead, well just be wiping the drive and starting over from scratch. Then super eraser for mac will help you format and erase the selected hard drive device. May 01, 2020 how to erase a disk for mac use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device.
The best ways to format an external drive for windows and. How to format an external hard drive the easy way in 2020. In disk utility on mac, you can erase and reformat storage devices to use with your mac. If the external hard drive is pre formatted for mac, disk management will list 3 partitions and you will not be able to delete the health efi system partition because its a protected partition. Need to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. If you have any files you want to save, copy them to another storage device.
How to format external hard drive on mac compatible with. By unhiding the external hard drive, you will be able to find the external hard drive on mac. How to format external hard drive on a mac latest version. External hard drive compatible with mac and pc without. Dec 05, 2019 most of the times the mac drives are formatted with an efi system partition. 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.
The operating system will prompt you to wipe the drive. Jul 29, 2019 its possible to format your external hard drive with windows and without a mac but without erasing the disk isnt possible and you will have to keep back up if you want your data and you will need a thirdparty tool or software for that. An incompatible file system, faulty permission settings, and unexpected formatting error are all likely to cause your external hard drive to show up. Many of these files are backups from our mac, while others could be data that we need to access on another computer or device. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing data. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. If you intend to use the external hard drive exclusively to mac, then you can select the mac file system.
Format a mac internal or external hard drive, even a mac ssd easily. How to convert mac hard drive to windows without losing. On mac computers, use the finder app to browse and manage files on your computer and external hard drives. Make sure you click the drive you want to securely delete. Wipe external hard drive on mac via terminal command line. Open disk utility via your applications utilities folder. Reformatting a hard drive is often done just to erase all of its contents. Usb drives and external hard drives use the windows fat32 to format for compatibility. How to recover from external hard drive readonly error on mac. Read on to know how you can erase a mac storage drive easily with the. If you are going to use an external hard drive or an external ssd to back up your mac data, then you should start by formatting it for the macos extended file system. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Select the drive or volume you want to erase, and then press the erase button at the top of the disk utility window. 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.
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. If it is not ticked, you will lose all of your data. However, the new external hard drive comes as formatted drive, but, if you think the external drive should be formatted as another format filesystem. How to format an external hard drive and remove errors. Thank you for helping us maintain cnets great community. For example, here wed type select disk 2 finally, type clean and press enter.
How to format a drive without deleting files using free space. How to erase and format an external hard drive on mac and. Select the external hard drive in the left hand sidebar and click on the erase tab. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. Macclean360 is one of the best disk cleaning and management software for mac os.
If you have a mac lying around, you can plug the drive into a mac and back up the files. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Once you hit erase button it will prompt you are you sure you want to erase the disk, so, click erase to proceed. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. That said, if you are using smaller file sizes fat32 can suffice. Formatting a drive will erase all data and partitions on the disk. However, the new external hard drive comes as formatted drive, but, if you think the external drive should be formatted as another format. Mac users can confront a read only error, but in worst case scenarios, mac external hard drive read only is not going to allow for creating a backup. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac.
That allows you to test out the paragon software and make sure its for you and your particular set up. After recovering your important files from the raw external hard drive, you can now directly format the hard drive into ntfs. Mar 21, 2017 connect the drive you want to securely delete, then click it in the sidebar. Select the hard drive you want to securely erase from the list of available drives in the left column. It is a complete solution to change the file formats. To format external hard drive on mac, all you have to do is plugin your hard drive and launch disk utility. How to partition your drive in osx without losing your files or using any. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. How to format an external hard drive for mac duration. How to format a hard drive or ssd to erase it forever. If youre erasing an external drive, make sure that its connected. Aug 10, 2018 disk formatting is the process of prepping a storage device like a hard drive, ssd, thumb drive usb flash drive, etc to store information, which will erase the existing data forever. So, we suggest that its better to use a pc to partition an external hard drive for macos and windows. Now it is become quite easy to change format of external hard drive without deleting files.
How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. After plug in hard drive into the system, you will get option to open windows explorer and by clicking on the computer section in the side bar, you will see your hard drive get attached to your system. All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your mac. 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.
If your drive is an ssd, you wont be able to click security options as this option will be grayed out. May 21, 2018 how to partition external hard drive without losing data. Oct 25, 20 how to format a drive without deleting files using free space jacob dykstra. How to format an external drive for mac compatibility. If youre not erasing the disk your mac started up from, you dont need to start. Partitioning drive without deleting files in osx fast,easy and no. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another. How to format a mac external hard drive to be compatible with. Erase and reformat a storage device in disk utility on mac. This is a simple procedure and is achieved the same way for all drive types and through all connections, be they usb, firewire, or thunderbolt. How to partition external hard drive without losing data.
How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Or if you wish to be able to transfer back and forth pc to mac or mac to pc, select the fat32 format. 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. Locate your external drive from the list of devices and drives. Expand the size of c drive without losing and formatting. To partition external hard drive, there are two methods for you. The good news is that you can download the software and have a 10 day free trial.
To format such a partition, you have to go through a complete wipe out of your hard drive. Open the window explorer,and select the my computerthis pc section in the sidebar, then locate your drive. However, if you want to convert ntfs to exfat to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc, 3 steps are required. Thus, having an external hard drive will help you to save your files. How to securely erase data from your mac and external drives. Before a hard drive can read or write data, it must first be formatted, or erased and reconfigured. Click go at the upper right of your desktop and go to utilities, and then open disk utility. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. A hard drive can be used on any type of computer pc or mac. Reformatting a drive on windows is a pretty straightforward process. Format the hard drive 98% recovery if you simply wish to wipe your external hard drive clean so that you can have access to the full storage space it offers, you can format it using a very simple process.
Highlight your external hard drive from the storage devices listed on the left sidebar and click erase tab from the main menu. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. If your external hard drive is readonly on mac because it was formatted with microsoft ntfs file system, you can free download iboysoft ntfs for mac and feel free to copywriteeditdelete and transfer files on this drive without formatting it. Wipe external hard drive on mac via terminal command line if for any reason disk utility fails to wipe your drive. Dec, 2019 now enter the name for the external drive which will be used after formatting and also select exfat for format option and click on the erase. This mode wipe hard drive will help you format a selected hard drive device and erase all data from it. Now it is become quite easy to change format of external hard drive without deleting. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility.
Open the disk utility app on your mac using one of the following methods, depending on the type of disk or volume you want to erase. Then proceed to highlight your computers hard drive. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. External hard drives use either spinning disks or solid memory to save your files. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. If it does not you will need to rightclick and delete the volume first. Use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. One of the reasons why the external hard drive is not showing on mac is because the drive might be hidden. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Give your drive a name and select the file system you want from the format dropdown. But in order for the computer and drive to talk to one another, the drive has to be formatted.
The above disk management technique to change the format of the external hard drive can only format files which is smaller than 32 gb. Its because ssds dont have to go through this process due to the way it manages files. Now, change the format of the external hard drive to fat32 by converting the file system. How to reformat to mac without losing files external. Will formatting an external hard drive erase everything. If your mac drive has an efi partition, follow the steps to format it. Be sure to doublecheck this you could accidentally wipe the wrong drive if you select the wrong disk here. Hard drive to go between mac and pc without deleting anythin. You can run it on your mac, and use it to format external hard drive or device on your mac. You just need to select the hard drive you want to format, and then click on wipe now button. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them. Partition external hard drive with windows builtin disk management. Here are the steps to partition an external hard drive for mac and windows pc, which is a little tricky. Download disk formatting software for mac doyourdata.
Both companies have tools that make an external hard drive compatible with mac and pc without formatting. 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 to share a usb drive between a mac and a windows pc, there are two disk formats to choose from. This will format the drive as exfat format and your drive is now compatible with both platforms. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. This command erases the entire selected disk, including all its files and partitions whether. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. Select your drive in the lefthand sidebar and go to the erase tab. Expand the size of c drive without losing and formatting data. How to erase and format a hard drive lifehacker australia.