how to format external hard drive mac for windows

#How to format external hard drive mac for windows how to#
#How to format external hard drive mac for windows mac os#
#How to format external hard drive mac for windows install#

11) At last press Apply, then click on Partition. 8) Name the hard drive with a name of your choice. 6) Change the Partition Layout from Current to 1 Partition.ħ) Click Options, Select Master Boot Record, and click OK. 3) Select the drive you want to format.Ĥ) Click the Partition tab.

2) Open Disk Utility. You can do this quickly by pressing CMD and the spacebar at the same time.

#How to format external hard drive mac for windows how to#

7) Follow the instructions and at the end click “ Finish“ How to Format an External Drive in OS X 1) Connect your external hard drive to the Mac. 2) Open Disk Management.ģ) Right click on unallocated or any other disk partition and select “ New Simple Volume” 4) Choose your desired size 5) Assign your external hard drive with any letter. How to format an External Drive in Windows 1) Connect the drive to your Windows PC.

#How to format external hard drive mac for windows install#

To do so you also have to install third-party like. Windows 7 can’t read nor write files to external drives that are formatted as HFS. So in the end, it’s possible to make your NTFS external hard drive compatible with Mac.īut we advise to just format it to “FAT” file system as it’s less time consuming and easier.

Quicken home business & rental property for mac.

To make your Mac compatible writing on NTFS you have to get and install a third-party driver. Macs that run Snow Leopard or Lion can read data from drives that are formatted as NTFS.

exFAT – a newer file system optimized for flash devices and has improved performance overFAT32 Why I can’t use NTFS on Mac? The default file system for Windows is NTFS (New Technology File System).

FAT32 – a file system normally used on USB disks.

This is one of the most widely recognized file system formats.

#How to format external hard drive mac for windows mac os#

The resulting FAT32 file system will be compatible with all versions of Mac OS X, and Windows including back to 95. Once you have done with formatting, your external hard drive will be able to write and read files from both a PC and Mac. Many still choose FAT32 over exFAT despite its slower performance, as it’s also compatible with Linux Os and is supported on many consoles. If you have to work with large video clips, games or any other kind of massive files, FAT32 may not be the best choice. However, each of these filesystems has their own pros and cons.įAT32 has a maximum 4GB file size limit, but exFAT can work with files as large as 16EB, that’s more than you will ever need. Just keep in mind if you want to use your drive also for OS X’s Time Machine backups, we advise you to format your drive through Mac because there is an additional step to make drive compatible with “Time Machine Backups”. And you can only do this with exFAT as with FAT32 Mac OS X’s Time Machine backup won’t work.įAT32 or exFAT? You can format your external hard drive in both – exFAT and FAT32. You can format your external hard drive from either the PC or Mac. The best ways to format an external drive for Windows and Mac Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with Windows and Mac. Change the Partition Layout from Current to 1 Partition. Select the external hard drive on the left-hand side. Click Go on the top tool bar, and select Utilities. Connect the external hard drive to the computer.