Format A New External Hard Drive For Mac

FORMAT A NEW EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE DRIVER WITH A

Typically, I use them for different purposes, so I never need to share data between computers. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on Mac and Windows.I have multiple Macs and PCs at home. With exFAT, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years. The Best Format for External Hard Drives If you want to format your external hard drive to work with Mac and Windows computers, you should use exFAT.

FAT32FAT stands for File Allocation Table. FormatFrom the table above, you can see that two formats fully supported by macOS and Windows: FAT32 and exFAT. You just substitute external hard drive with USB flash drive, and the instructions will remain the same.Before we make any irreversible changes, let me give you a quick overview of file formats supported in both systems. Or it does show up on Mac but not on PC.So let me show you how easy it is to format an external hard drive, so it works on both Mac and PC.By the way, everything written here applies to USB flash drives as well. Probably, your external hard drive works on pc but not Mac. Windows wants to format Mac driveIf you are reading this article, I bet you have the same problem.

For instance, this is the error you will see in Windows when trying to copy a big 8GB file to a disk formatted in FAT32. The largest file it supports is 2^32 вЂ“ 1 bytes, which is a little less than 4GB. With files getting larger and larger Microsoft kept extending the number of bytes they supported until they released FAT32.FAT32 is still a DOS file format, but since Microsoft supports anything they built 40 years ago, you still can use it.The advantage of FAT32 is that it is compatible with Macs.The downside of FAT32 file format is a file size limit. The old format was designed in 1978 as an 8-bit file system.

NTFSNTFS stands for New Technology File System. While we at macmyths.com love myths and tales, but in this case, we think the slowness of exFAT is overblown.Keep reading to learn how to format exFAT on Mac. I donвЂ™t know how much it is, but I am sure you will never have a file so big.The advantage of exFAT is that it is compatible with Macs.The downside of exFAT file format it is slower than other Windows formats according to some widespread rumors. Unlike FAT32, the file size limit in exFAT is 2^64 вЂ“ 1 bytes or 16 exabytes. Microsoft developed it in 2006 in order to support new 32GB SD cards.

It means Macs can read NTFS drives, but cannot change or delete anything. All we want to know is NTFS compatible with Mac? macOS, by default, has read-only support for NTFS. In just 25 years such name will be ridiculed by rivals.Anyway, NTFS was the first proper file system developed by Microsoft, it has all features that modern file format should have, and Windows is still using it as a primary format.But we donвЂ™t care about features.

But users who need to transfer data between PCs and Macs have to choose between FAT32 or exFAT. Which format is compatible with Mac and Windows?I donвЂ™t know if Microsoft is arrogant and never tried to support file systems other than their own, or Apple wanted to lure PC users so much. Older MacBooks use HFS+ file system. APFS was introduced first with macOS High Sierra, so if you have a new Mac, its startup disk is most likely under APFS. APFS and Mac OS ExtendedAPFS and Mac OS Extended (also called HFS+) and their encrypted and case-sensitive variants are native macOS file formats.

Check Format line under the General section. Next, select it and use Command + I key combination to bring up the information dialog. Start the Finder and locate the disk in the Sidebar.

Click on Partition icon in the Disk Utility toolbar. Do not click Macintosh HD! ItвЂ™s your primary disk, and you donвЂ™t want to break it. Find the drive in the left Sidebar window and click on it. Start Disk Utility with Spotlight Search. In this example, I am using my old Seagate drive. If you have data on the drive and do not want to lose it then read the paragraph about not losing data below.

How to Format External Hard Drive For Mac and PC in Windows PC: Click on Partition button.Now, the external hard drive is interchangeable between Mac and PC, and you can copy files from Macs and PCs to the drive and back.If you donвЂ™t have access to Mac at the moment, you can do everything in Windows. Disk Utility will warn that the operation will erase all data on the drive. And as you guessed it, calling it Junk or Trash is not super productive. Having a meaningful name can beneficial in the future when you need to work with multiple drives. Type the name of the partition.

Be careful not to change the wrong disk. The newly appeared disk is the one you need to work with. In the box type diskmgmt.msc and hit EnterStart Disk Management service with Run dialog

This will bring up a wizard. Right-click again and select New Simple Volume. Right-click on the drive and select Delete Volume and click Yes when prompted. It may have more than one partition, click on the larger one. The disk that keeps disappearing and reappearing is the one you need.

Backup data from the disk to another drive. Click Next.But what if have a drive formatted as NTFS, APFS or HFS+ with files you want to keep? Convert from NTFS to exFAT without losing data Change File System dropdown to exFAT on the Format Partition page and give a name to the Volume. On Assign Drive Letter click Next again.

I uploaded the installer file to Virus Total site, and one antivirus detected Minitool as a malware. Some people suggested using MiniTool Partition Wizard. Copy files back to the hard drive.

Find the hard drive in the Sidebar on the left and click on it. Start Disk Utility with Spotlight Search Use it at your own risk.Minitool detected as malware in Virus Total Convert from APFS/HFS+ to exFAT without losing dataThe following can work if there is enough space on the hard drive to keep two copies of your data:

Unfortunately, macOS does not allow resizing exFAT partitions so that you will end up with two of them. You can keep old partition in macOS format or delete and recreate it as exFAT. When the process finishes copy files from the old partition to a new one.Now, you can use a new partition to move files between PC and Mac. Give a name to the new partition, set its format to exFAT and click Apply.

Enter the password and click on Install Software button. The installer will ask to enter the admin password. FUSE for macOS package contentsKeep clicking on Next and Agree buttons until you get to Install phase. Then double click on FUSE for macOS.pkg file to start the wizard.

Format A New External Hard Drive Driver With A

To install open the Terminal app and type:Brew install ntfs-3g Replace default driver with a new one Disable System Integrity Protection TemporarilyNow, reboot Mac in Recovery mode. There is a Linux driver NTFS-3G which does the work. Download it from if you donвЂ™t have one.FUSE does not work with NTFS drives. For the next part, you need Homebrew. Install driver with HomebrewAnd now the hard part. Allow installing FUSERestart the Mac once the installation is complete.

Replace default macOS driver with NTFS-3gType two commands to save old driver with new name and copy new driver in place of default one:Sudo mv /sbin/mount_ntfs /sbin/mount_ntfs.

Format A New External Hard Drive For Mac