Any hard drive can be formatted for mac and here is how you do it. Today, if you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working. It came formatted for mac os and i need to format it under ntfs. How to format an external hard drive for a mac youtube. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. Find out which hard drive can help increase your storage or safely back up your mac. Well show you everything you need to know about the. Click the icon for your external hard drive in the sidebar on the left. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. Overwrite exfat format of 8tb external drive with ntfs. So far it has performed flawlessly as my primary backup disk for my macbook pro laptop. I have a 4tb gpt external usb hard drive that i need to format as fat32.
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. Gtechnology external hard drive for mac, usb have it all. A western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac osx. The best format for your external hard drive the hellotech blog.
Disk utility didnt show the drive for me to format and the sata devices section under apple system profiler didnt show the drive listed at all. In this video i demonstrate how to reformat an external hard drive in windows 88. When i open disk utility pertaining to the new hd i see 698. Select the drive, click erase, choose the name and format of the drive, and click erase. Ever run out of storage space and start wondering if it would be possible to take a crowbar to your new unibody macbook pro to pry it open and put another hard. I bought a 3tb wd30ezrx about 4 months ago and although i struggled i did eventually obtain a. Still with the external disk selected in disk utility go to the erase tab, select mac os extended journaled from the format dropdown, choose to name the disk and then. If you need to format external hard drive mac or windows, you may also consider the exfat files system.
I am having a huge dilemma with my new western digital 4tb hard drive. How to format a usb external disk for mac osx using disk. How to format an external hard drive for mac youtube. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Compare portable, usb and external hard drive models for office and home and shop online. Developed by microsoft, this modern file system is optimized for situations where. Designed to look good on the desktop the gtechnology external hard drive for mac. I just got the a new wd 4tb my book and had similar issues formatting. Fully compatible with both windows and mac operating systems, the my. Need to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. I had this problem where i couldnt see my external usb hdd with ntfs format in mac os and i tried diskutil where it stuck at loading. Mac pro 2019 mac pro late 20 mac mini 2018 and later. If youre looking for a macfriendly external hard drive thats built for durability, take a look at lacies rugged thunderbolt usbc portable hard drive.
If you see the drive is ntfs then youll either need to reformat the drive or use a ntfs driver. You can do that by typing disk format or disk management in windows search or going to control panel administrative tools create and format. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. I just bought 2 of the above mentoned hdds, and am having a nightmare trying to p and f them. External hard drive used for laptop backup well made, but too difficult to format for mac. Unlike our best 1tb external hard drive and best 2tb external hard drive guide, we arent focusing on raw speed in this one. My book external hard drive western digital wd it is formated in exfat. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. Right click on your toshiba external hard drive icon and pick get info from the menu. Before digging in, select a primary format youll use the most.
Here are the best mac hard drives and external storage options in 2020. My passport wont format external drives for mac wd. How to use toshiba external hard drive on mac solved. My book is a sturdy desktop external hard drive that is available in the following storage capacities. The problem is that my macbook air 11 20 with mac os x 10. Even though mac computers are capable of reading hard drives that are formatted for windows, if you intend on using your external hdd as a bootable disk or want to use it to backup files with your macs. This is useful if a drive is being used under both operating system osto. Make offer new wd my book external 4tb hdd backup desktop storage wdbbgb0040hbk 4tb gdrive g1, professional 7200 rpm sata iii drive, usb 3. Discover the world of external hard drives for mac. I have other 4tb external drives already formatted as fat32 see. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac.
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. For pc and mac compatibility, select exfat format and master boot record scheme. This insures that you will have a compatible hard drive with. Before using an external hard drive on a mac, you should format it using disk utility.
If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. From the volume format menu, choose mac os extended. Seagate backup plus portable 4tb external hard drive hdd black usb 3. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Returned it and bought the passport 4tb external drive made for mac instead, which is an excellent item and very. This this tutorial should work just the same on windows 7 and windows 10. Its a good idea to backup your data for your mac using time machine.
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