'I get a new Western digital hard drive and want to use it as an external disk to save working files. But I don't know how to format it since I should frequently switch from a PC to a Macbook. Can you tell me how to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC compatibility so that I can easily access or transfer my stuff between the two operating system?' Overview of External Hard Drive Formatting for Mac and PC As we all know, Mac and Windows use different file systems by default. So, if you frequently use both a PC and a Mac computer and want to share an external drive between the two operating system for data backup or transfer, you need to make it compatible with Mac and PC first. But how can you format the external hard drive for Mac & PC?
What is the best file system that makes external hard drive compatible with both PC and Mac What is the best file system that supported by both PC and Mac? Actually, many users have some doubts on this question. If you are one of them, you can choose FAT32 or exFAT in your case. Advantages of the FAT32 file system: FAT32 is not only compatible with Mac and Windows but also many gaming and Linux OSs. Disadvantages of the FAT32 file system: 1. Single files larger than 4GB on the external hard drive is not supported by FAT32.
Mac OS X's Time Machine backup utility won't work with FAT32. How to Format an External Hard Drive to fat32 for Mac and PC If you ignored all the disadvantages and decided to format your external hard drive to FAT32, you might need a third-party software for help when the disk is larger than 32GB.
May 5, 2016 - Many external hard drives come pre-formatted as FAT 32. This is a native Windows file format that can be read by Mac OS X, but is not ideal for.
You know, Windows Disk Management utility completely cannot help at this moment. Here, you can try EaseUS, a program allows you to format the Western Digital hard drive, Seagate hard drive, Toshiba hard drive, etc to FAT32 in Windows 10/8/7/XP/Vista with simple steps.
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So, you just bought an external hard drive and wanted to use it on your Mac. But somehow, macOS doesn’t allow you to write data to the drive.
That’s all because it’s been initialized with Windows NT File System (NTFS), which is primarily for PCs. Apple Mac machines support a different file system. In this post, I’m going to show you how to format your external drive for a Mac compatible file system i.e. Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Just follow this easy step-by-step guide and you’re all set. Important note: If you have useful files stored on the external drive, be sure to copy or transfer them to another safe place prior to formatting.
The operation will erase all data and your files will be gone for good. You could use a recovery program like to retrieve them, but the odds of recovery vary. Pro tip: If your external drive has a large volume, like mine – a. I highly recommend you also create multiple partitions. I’ll also show you how to do that below. Most External Hard Drives Are Initiated with NTFS During the last several years, I’ve used several removable drives, including a 500GB WD My Passport, 32GB Lexar flash drive, and a few others.
Three weeks ago, I bought a brand new 2TB Seagate Expansion to backup my MacBook Pro before I updated to the latest macOS, 10.13 High Sierra (also see those I encountered). When I connected the Seagate to my Mac, the drive icon showed up like this. When I opened it, the default content was all there. Since I wanted to use it on Mac, I clicked the blue logo with the text “StartHere-Mac”.
It brought me to a webpage on Seagate’s site, where it clearly indicated the drive was initially set up to work with a Windows PC. If I wanted to use it with Mac OS or Time Machine backup (which is my intent), I’ll need to format the drive for my Mac. I then right-clicked the external drive icon on Mac desktop Get Info.
It showed this format: Format: Windows NT File System (NTFS) What is NTFS? I’m not going to explain here; you can read more on. The problem is that on macOS, you can’t work with files saved on an NTFS drive unless you use a paid app. How to Format an External Drive to Work with Mac (from NTFS to Mac OS Extended)? Note: The tutorial and screenshots below are based on macOS Sierra 10.12.5. They might be different if your Mac has a different version. Step 1: Open Disk Utility.
The quickest way to do this is a simple Spotlight search (click the search icon on the upper right corner), or go to Applications Utilities Disk Utility. Step 2: Highlight your external drive and click “Erase”. Make sure your drive is connected. It should show up on the left panel under “External”. Select that disk and click the “Erase” button, the one highlighted in red in the screenshot below.
Step 3: Select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” in Format. A new window will pop up asking which file system you’d like to format the external drive to. By default, it’s the Windows NT File System (NTFS). Select the one shown below. Pro tip: If you want to use the external drive for both Mac and PC, you can also select “ExFAT”. Learn more about the differences between these file systems from.
By the way, you can also rename your external drive. Step 4: Wait until the erasing process is complete.
For me, it took less than a minute to format my 2TB Seagate Expansion. You can also check to see if the format was successful. Right-click on the icon for your external drive on Mac desktop, then select “Get Info”. Under “Format”, you should see text like this: Congratulations!
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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: Step 1: Highlight your drive and click “Partition” in Disk Utility. Open the Disk Utility app and highlight your external hard drive.
Make sure you select the disk icon right under “External”. If you select the one below it, the Partition option will be greyed out and become unclickable.
Step 2: Add partitions and allocate volume for each one. After clicking “Partition”, you’ll see this window. Located on the left is a big blue circle with the name of your external drive together with its volume size. What you need to do next is click the add “+” button to increase the number of partitions on your external disk. Then allocate the desired volume to each partition.
You can do that by clicking the small white circle and dragging it around. After that, you can rename each partition and define a file system for it. Step 3: Confirm your operation. Once you hit “Apply”, a new window pops up asking for your confirmation. Take a few seconds to read the text description to make sure it reflects what you intend to do, then click the “Partition” button to continue. Step 4: Wait until it says “Operation successful.” To check whether the operation is really successful, go to your Mac desktop. You should see multiple disk icons show up.
I chose to create two partitions on my Seagate Expansion — one for backup, the other for personal use. You can find more info in this post:. That wraps up this tutorial article. I hope you find it helpful. As always, let me know if you have any issues during the formatting or partitioning process.