How To Format External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc

How To Format An External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc Exfat
How To Format External Hard Drive To Work On Mac And Pc
How To Format External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc Windows 10
Format External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc Partition

Video editors will often find that they need to share files between a PC and a Mac. Use these steps to format external hard drives for both operating systems. As a video editor or Digital Imaging Technician, you will often need to share files with others. Eventually you will find out that you may. 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. To use HFSExplorer, connect your Mac-formatted drive to your Windows PC and launch HFSExplorer. Click the “File” menu and select “Load File System From Device.” It will automatically locate the connected drive, and you can load it. You’ll see the contents of the HFS+ drive in the graphical window. Format Hard Drive (Mac) 1. Connect the external hard drive to the computer. Click Go on the top tool bar, and select Utilities. Open Disk Utility. Select the external hard drive on the left-hand side. Click the Partition tab. Change the Partition Layout from Current to 1 Partition.

Oct 15,2019 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions

External hard drives are the storage devices used to store and retrieve digital information, personal and official data like files, documents and other stuff. These are attached to systems through FireWire or USB connection or wirelessly to transfer data from the internal drive to hard disk drives. If you are looking for new operating system or selling your old computers or laptops, then you need to set up an external hard drive for backups by erasing and formatting the existing data in the storage devices.

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Part 1:　How to Format an External Hard Drive on Windows

The Windows users who are going to format external hard drive for the first time, they will get complete information and stepwise procedure of formatting drives.

Stepwise Procedure to Format Storage Device on Windows:

Before formatting an external hard drive on Windows, back up all the informational data like files, music and official data into safe place.
To format an external hard drive, plug in the device into system or a wall outlet.
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.
When you will do right click on the hard drive icon, you will get option to choose 'Format'?.
After that, you can opt any file system that you want to use for the operating systems.
Mention your hard drive with a name under Volume Label and check out the Quick Format box.
To initiate the formatting process, click on the start button and within a few seconds, you will get notification when the process get completed.
Open the hard drive in Windows Explorer and start dragging documents and files into it.

Follow the stepwise procedure to format an external hard drive and make sure it will not show similar free space as it displays on the box as the systems determine the space differently as it is marked on the box.

Video Tutorial on How to Format External Hard Drive

Part 2: How to Format an External Drive on Mac

Mac users can select any file system that supports their operating system. In order to format an external drive on Mac, you can follow stepwise procedure as discussed below:

Stepwise Procedure to Format Storage Device on Mac:

Before starting storage device formatting process, you need to backup all informational data in a separate folder for the future use.
Plug in the storage drive into Mac.
The drive when get connected to the system, you can see the storage device icon on the screen.
Now open the finder and check out the applications/utilities. After that, operate double click on the disk utility.
To format external hard drive, opt your storage device in the left hand sidebar and click on the erase tab.
After that, you will see format menu where you can select the file system that are compatible with your operating system.
Describe or provide a specific name to your drive and click on erase button. Within a short time span, your storage device will get formatted.
When you are done with the formatting process, click on the hard drive in the finder and initiate the dragging process or you can also set up as a backup storage device with Time Machine.

By following the stepwise procedure mentioned above, you can easily format the storage device on Mac.

What is External Hard Drive Formatting Process?

Formatting external hard drives is a process of deleting or erasing the memory chunks to avail the space for new data. Formatting can be performed at two stages: low level and high level process. Formatting may take few hours to wipe out the existing data, but the process can be hassle-free if you get to know about stepwise instructions of how to format an external hard drive.

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. Technically, it is the process of writing a new directory structure which allows the documents and files to be overwritten and create space for the new data.

Before formatting external hard drives, backup all important data that you are going to format. Most external hard devices come with backup software that will make process much easier to do. If you have documents, music, photos saved elsewhere on computer then make sure you have copied all stuff before formatting. Remember once all the data get formatted, it will not be recovered at any cost.

File System Explained:

Before proceeding to format external hard drive, you need to know about file systems which are particularly associated with the operating systems. File systems are the key parts of translation from the physical data recording on a hard drive to the files that are read by operating systems only.

Various operating systems like Mac, Windows, Linux and OS X have different file systems to organize and store digital information. The most popular file systems are as discussed below:

NTFS (New Technology File System): NTFS is developed by Microsoft, started with Windows NT 3.0. It is also known as Window's default file system. Microsoft has launched five versions of NTFS: v1.0 released with Windows NT 3.1, v1.2 with Windows 3.51, v3.0 with Windows 2000, v3.1 and v5.0 with Windows XP. The latest version includes many features like disk usage quotas, link tracking distribution, reparse points, file-level encryption and sparse file support. Windows can write and read to NTFS formatted hard drives while OS X and Linux can read only but can't write unless it is supported by third party devices like NTFS-3G. It has maximum 16 TB file size and 256 TB volume size.
FAT 32 (File Allocated Table): It was designed in year 1977 for floppy disks and three major file systems variants are: FAT12, FAT16 and FAT 32. The older version of FAT was quite simple and robust. FAT32 has come up with the increased number of bits which is used to address clusters. It also helps to reduce each cluster size due to which it will have great storage capacity and effectively support the large disks up to 2 TB. It can be written and read to by Linux, OS X and Windows. FAT32 offers maximum 4GB file size and 2 TB volume size.
ExFAT (Extended File Allocated Table): It is quite similar to FAT32 and is less commonly used. ExFAT can store up to 4GB files which make it perfect for flash drives. ExFat formatted drives can be read and written by OS X and Windows.
HFS Plus (Hierarchical File System): It is developed by Apple Inc. It serves as primary file system of OS X and also known as Mac OS Extended. For those who are operating Windows on Mac with Boot Camp, they can read HFS plus hard drives but can't write to them. However, third party tools like Paragon HFS+ assist the users to write and read to HFS+ drives. HFS plus offers 8 EiB maximum file size and volume size.

These are the popular file systems for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. For those who are running Windows computer, they can format hard drive as NTFS and for the Mac users; ExFAT will be the best and reliable option. Before formatting external hard drives, make sure you have created backup for the all important digital data. Nowadays, it is also possible to convert hard drive without losing any>Recover Your Drive

Fix Your Drive

Format/Wipe Drive

Know Your Drive

External hard drives are handy tools in storing files, data and documents. There are various reasons why you might need to format external hard drives. If you purchase an external hard drive as an addition to expand the storage space of your computer, most likely you would need to format it. More often than not, a lot of external hard drives are impacted by incurable virus infection. A lot of people would format their hard drives as soon as it is infected to avoid more damage. If there are errors or system failure where the external hard drives are not accessible, this would prompt for the action of formatting as well. This article will teach you how to format external hard drive for Mac and PC.

Part 1. How to Format External Hard Drive on Mac

If you need to format your external hard drive, do not worry as you can do it as easy as the following steps:

Step 1. Launch Disk Utility

After you have connected your external hard drive on you Mac, launch the 'Disk Utility' application which can be found under 'Applications'. Once the application is open, you would be able to see a list of available drives on the left side of the window. Identify and click the drive that you would like to format. Next, click the 'Erase' button on the top of the window. It is located next to 'First Aid' button.

Step 2. Choose the Format Option

In the 'Format' option, you can find that there are four options for formatting under its drop-down button. The 'Disk Utility' function will automatically choose 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' as the default format and this format is the most chosen format by users.

You can name your drive with any name that you like. You can change this at any point in time.

Step 3. Format the Drive

How To Format An External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc Exfat

Finally, click the 'Erase' button at the bottom of the window and confirm it again at the next pop-up window. This action will begin the formatting of the external hard drive and erases everything in it. A progress bar will appear and will show you how long it will take to complete.

Part 2. The Steps for Formatting an External Hard Drive on Windows

If you are a Windows user, formatting an external hard drive on your Windows is as easy. Simply follow the following steps:

Step 1. Launch 'My Computer' and Choose 'Format'

How To Format External Hard Drive To Work On Mac And Pc

After you have connected the external hard drive, launch 'My Computer' and you would be able to see the list of drives on the left side of the window or in the main window. Right click on your external hard drive and click Format.

Step 2. Format the External Hard Drive

Another window will pop-out. Simply click the 'Start' button and the formatting process will start and you are good to go!

Part 3. The Steps for Unformatting External Hard Drive on Mac and Windows Computer

I formatted my external hard drive on Mac by accident! The drive contains thousands of photos! Can I restore it back and retrieve my files again? Worry not, with iSkysoft Data Recovery for Mac (or iSkysoft Data Recovery for Windows) (macOS High Sierra supported), you can do just that and recover your precious photos and files. With powerful feature like the ease of use, flexible recovery settings and comprehensive 'Deep Scan' mode, the chances of recovering your formatted files are heightened!

Step by Step Guide to Unformat External Hard Drive

Step 1. Launch the Software

Connect the newly formatted external hard drive on your Mac computer. Once this is completed launch iSkysoft Data Recovery. Next, simply choose the right file type tabs from the main window interface and click 'Next' button. This option will allow the quick and accurate retrieval of data from accidental reformatting activity.

Step 2. Choose the External Hard Drive

Select the hard drive that you have formatted after it has been detected by the software. If it does not detect your desired external hard drive, click the 'Refresh' icon on the right of 'External Removable Device'. Thereafter, click the 'Start' button at the bottom of the window to start scanning.

Step 3. Restore the Formatted Data

After scanning process is completed, a list of files that can be retrieved will be available for your preview. Highlight the file name and you should be able to see the content in the preview window. Once you are satisfied on which files you want, choose the files that you would like to recover by clicking on the boxes on the left side of the file names. Click 'Recover' in order to retrieve them back and save it to your desired folder. Remember to save it locally in your Mac or in another removable drive, not in the newly formatted external hard drive. If needed, you can do this later.