To put it simply, if you want to share external hard drive between mac and pc, you need to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. Mar 31, 2020 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. Change the partition layout from current to 1 partition. How to solve external hard drive readonly without formatting. Therefore, based on these three file systems, we have two methods to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive.
Your wd elements drive will be on your mac s desktop under the name you gave it. Moving files from macformatted external hard drive to pc. Internal hdd and internal ssd drives do not ship pre formatted and will need to be partitioned and formatted before being used. This data recovery software is 100% safe and offers you the easiest way to recover formatted files from internal or external hard drive on mac. It will automatically locate the connected drive, and you can load it. Besides, you can use it to manage your hard drive partitions such as resize partition, delete partition, split partition, merge partitions, etc. Now your entire wd elements external hard drive is in a format both computers can use. But it is very easy to get a mac to use and understand an ntfs formatted drive. Click the file menu and select load file system from device. Formatting a hard drive is the best way to start from scratch on a geeky project. Plug the cable attached to the wd external hard drive to the appropriate port on the mac, for example, the usb port.
Download wd quick formatter to reformat wd external hard drive to ntfs, fat32, etc in windows 1087. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. Mac os x and windows can both read and write to disks in the fat or exfat format. Choose the exfat file system in the list and click start. You can format an external hard drive or thumb drive to work seamlessly with both mac and windows by using the exfat file system.
Apr 16, 2020 can i use wd hard drive on mac and pc. Rightclick in the unallocated space on the initialized disk and select new simple volume. Rightclick the new hard drive and select the format option. Now that we know the good and bad about every file system, let see how to format a drive in windows, mac, and linux. Both mac os x and windows allow users to format their hard drives using builtin utilities. Sep 26, 2018 after that, you can use your external hard drive on both mac and windows machine.
If you plan on formatting an external hard drive then make sure its plugged in an appears on your desktop. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. If you are going to use the external hard drive on mac only, i would format it as mac os extended journaled and a guid partition. How to format hard drives on windows, mac and linux. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing. In the value label field, type a descriptive name for the drive. How to reformat my external hard drive for windows 10. Two ways for reformatting wd hard drive for mac and pc. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard drive.
How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Mar 31, 2020 it doesnt matter if you are a windows or a mac user, you might encounter unwanted problems while formatting a hard drive. Plug in your external hdd to the usb port of your computer then go to my computer find your external drive rightclick it and select format. That said, if you are using both a pc and mac in the workflow, youll need to use a different. Need to format an external hard drive for mac and windows.
Using it, you can erase a hard drive, create new partitions, and even repair your disk as well. Format your external drive with exfat for both mac and. Then, after making sure that it is the windows ntfs file system that makes your external hard drive readonly on mac, you can go head to fix this problem. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. How to format a hard drive on mac to work on mac and pc. How to partition and format a wd drive on windows and macos. Now either because of time, corruption or because it may have been formatted for a mac when i plug it into my pc i cant access it. Using wd 4 tb my passport for both mac and pc external. Check if an external hard drive is ntfs formatted in the finder. Formatting an external hard drive or internal hard drive partition. A vast majority of video production will be done on a mac or windows operating system, so we arent going to cover linux.
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. Before you get the answer, you must figure out what kind of file system can work well on both the macos and the windows system. How to format wd external drive for mac apple community. To format external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below.
As it is mentioned above, after formatting a hard drive, all data on the hard drive will be erased. A drive can be formatted with exfat using either a windows or a mac computer. A solid state drive is known for its highend features and should be protected. Some hard drives may also include drivers, firmware, or format wizards so be sure to check the user manual before formatting the hard drive. Where, i am seeing instruction links, for mac operating system, for. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. Formatting external hard drive for both mac and windows.
How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. Now your entire wd elements external hard drive is in a format. It will not shorten the service life of the wd portable hard drive even the wd portable hard drive is erased 35 times by this software. Is it possible to format a hard drive to readwrite for both windows and mac os specifically, film and photo files. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. The method youll learn uses your mac to format your wd passport for mac and windows. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. The below steps for formatting external drive is for windows 10 and also. Aug 30, 2019 plug in the external hard drive into the system and open windows explorer by clicking on the computer section in the side bar, you will see your external hard drive get attached to your system. How to partition and format a wd drive on windows and. 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.
To finish such formatting task, you can directly right click the wd hard drive in windows file explore, choose format, or open disk management to format the hard drive. Mar 12, 2018 but to get a hard drive to be compatible for both mac and pc, you have to choose the exfat formatting options. But compared with formatting, an ntfs for mac driver like iboysoft ntfs for mac is a better and feasible solution. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. How to format an external hard drive on windows 10. I recommend doing it this way, as macs can be choosy about what formats their hard drives. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step. The operating system has an inbuilt tool, which is known as disk utility. Here are two ways offered and you can choose on based on your own situation.
How to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc. Well show you everything you need to know about the. To access the disk management tool, click the windows icon and type disk management. Apr 16, 2020 step 6 once formatting completes, you can then use your drive in mac as a usual hard drive. 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. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and. Try wd advanced format utility alternative easeus external hard drive formatter to format disk while wd external drive format failed with wd quick formatter tool. For windows, it offers quick format feature when you rightclick the hard drive on the computer. Download wd quick formatter to format external drive in. You can also check this in the finder with a few clicks.
How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. It appears the issue has since been fixed and disks. How to format new hard drive on windows 10 windows central. If you are using a mac, you can run the builtin disk utility to quickly format a hard drive or external hard drive under mac os. 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 a new or second hard drive in windows 10 formatting a drive may vary in terms of different operating systems, like windows and mac. Apr 14, 2020 why need to format external hard drive for mac and pc. Formatting a hard drive will take a while and wait for it patiently.
A new window will open, select the desired file system, keep the allocation unit size to default and check mark quick format or it will take more time. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility. From what i understand, windows doesnt always like the way mac s do the formatting on some larger drives, though, so give it a try and if your windows machines dont like it, just format the drive with windows. 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. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. How to partition and format a drive on windows 10 and 8. People might need to format a hard drive or an external hard drive in windows 10 for various reasons. Transferring data from a mac to pc via an external hard drive. 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 you fail, you can choose free disk formatting software to do that. Hard drive to go between mac and pc without deleting anythin. The drive will now be formatted for use by windows systems. A western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac osx. Click on the erase button to start erasing the external hard drive or usb. Use the wizard to create a partition with the ntfs or fat32 file system.
If you run into the issue of not having enough space format it to be the ex fat as. Because mac os x mountain lion does not natively support writing to an external ntfs drive, you must erase your hard disk and format it using a compatible file system. There are specific thirdparty systems, like digital camcorders, and sony playstation 3, which need the drives to be formatted in either fat32 or exfat format to perform read from and. Nearest category i could find to my subject interest. Formatting, however, deletes the content of a volume to clean it, and assigns a file system to it so that data can be moved into and out of the volume. First to format your wd elements external drive to mac os extended journaled file system. In this video tutorial, i show you how to easily format an external hard drive to work on both a mac and a pc. Inside, enter the applications folder and then the utilities folder. This will format the drive as exfat format and your drive is now compatible with both platforms. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows.
Then your western digital external hard drive is ready to use on your mac and on your windows pc. Thank you for your response monicabang much appreciated. How to partition and format a wd drive on windows and macos external hard drives and external solid state drives come pre formatted and ready for use. To sum up, it is easy to format an external hard drive for both mac and windows pc. Select the external hard drive on the lefthand side. If your product is not listed above, please visit the product page. Youll want to do it before you sell your machine, for sure, but its also one of the steps you take when you. The exfat format supports virtually any size hard drive and file, unlike the outdated fat32 format. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. Nov 19, 2015 formatting a drive on windows is quite simple. My question is if i am able to set my hard drive to a format in which it can work on both windows and mac. And throw up issues when you format the external hard drive on a windows pc and then you use on your mac.
Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Mar 15, 2018 to use hfsexplorer, connect your macformatted drive to your windows pc and launch hfsexplorer. However, the formatted data can be recovered by data. Easily use your wd my passport for mac and windows in 7 steps. Bonus tip data recovery from formatted hard drive on mac. Two effective ways to format wd passport for windows. Although in principal, formatting means to erase existing data and free up space for utilization, the procedures are not exactly the same for mac and windows.
I can find it under device manager and disk management but thats it. Wd external hard drive work for mac os an apple community. To format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format. But unfortunately it bit the dust and i decided to get a pc. Step 6 once formatting completes, you can then use your drive in mac as a usual hard drive.
Make sure your external hard drive is attached and mounted to. How to reformat western digital portable hard drive. 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. Then, ill introduce you to workable and easy ways to format wd passport external hard drive, wd elements external hard drive and other external hard drives.
I then found the instructions to format it to mac but now whenever i connect it to a pc, it wont work. Where and with working to reformat my new hd, i have been directed to base support and then knowledge base answer id 3865. There will be no space wasted by protected mac partitions. The below steps for formatting external drive is for windows 10 and also works the same with an old version of windows. Fat32, exfat and ntfs are three file systems for external drive in windows, while ntfs is readonly on mac. For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a pc and mac.
And in a few minutes your wd elements drive is exfat formatted ready for you to use on your mac and windows pc. Doubleclick on the mac s main hard drive to open its window on the desktop. 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. Formatting external harddrive for both mac and windows. How do i make my wd passport work on both windows and mac. How to format wd my passport in windows system just like disk utility on mac, there is an inbuilt tool known as disk management in windows. At the time of the original posting in 2011, there were some problems getting a mac formatted exfat drive working with windows, it had trouble recognizing those drives. Both windows and mac os offer builtin disk formatting tool. Super eraser also can help you permanently erase filesfolders from wd portable hard drive, and wipe the free disk space of the wd portable hard drive. If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. For instance, users want to write data to and read data from, to do a clean installation of the windows system, to get rid of a virus or malware, to erase the data before giving the drive to someone else or throwing it away, or some other reasons. What you should know that formatting will erase all data on the drive. I currently have a windows laptop that i use and will be upgrading to a imac very soon. Format your western digital my passport external hard drive to fat32 or exfat format so to transfer the data between a mac and windows system conveniently.
I show you how to format a western digital or any brand hard drive for use on any device be it a mac, pc, linux, ps3, xbox 360, etc. This is useful if a drive is being used under both operating system osto move files between the two environments. If you havent backed up your hard drive data before formatting, you can also recover files from the formatted hard drive by using cisdem datarecovery. Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on mac. Two ways to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc. Just like windows, macos also gives us a seamless option to format hard drive for mac and pc.
Therefore, when you format ssd on windows or mac, make sure that you follow the right protocols. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Aomei partition assistant is such a great simple tool for formatting external hard drive for mac and windows. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. Format wd elements for mac and pc have your drive for both. How to format new or second hard drive on windows 10mac. Rather than use a mac formatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exfat formatted drives for moving data between macs and pcs. How to format wd my passport for mac and pc easeus.
My question is how do i reformat my wd harddrives that are set up for windows, without losing any of my files. Please keep in mind that reformatting will result in the loss of all the data on the hard drive so make sure you back up your data elsewhere before starting. To format the drive to work with both platforms you will need use a windows computer to format the disk as exfat. You can select the exfat format when using the disk utility to format the drive. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. Use the file system dropdown menu, and select ntfs recommended. Step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. Hey all, quick question, and from my googling it looks like it is possible, however i want to double check just to be sure. To format your external drive hard drive in windows which works with both platforms, first plugin your drive with windows machine. Fat32 is another option, but it limits file transfer to 4gb, so choose exfat when.
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