However, you can format the drive to work with both windows and mac by using the exfat filesystem. The instructions below are for windows 10, but other versions of windows from windows 7 and up can also format an external drive as exfat for use with mac as well. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. As long as we format the external hard drive to one of these 2 file systems, it can be shared between mac and windows. Usb disk storage format tool by authorsoft corporation is a free utility that allows you to easily format your usb flash drives.
Windows offers users builtin disk management tool to create, delete, resize. Downloading center solutions for macpc data and file transfer. Select the hard drive and click erase, then disk utility will help you format and erase the hard drive or device. Mactext length 704,559 bytes, a small text converter for macintosh file formats which are generally ignored on the pc subset of our general conversion packages. Your best option is to format the external drive on the windows machine using exfat as it will do it correctly, the mac has issues formatting exfat for windows. Fat32 works with all versions of windows, mac os, linux, game consoles, etc. If you have a usb flash drive inserted in your mac, you can see it under the external in the disk utility. To format hard drive for mac and windows without data loss, we suggest using minitool partition wizard and its convert ntfs to fats32 function. Click erase to wipe all the data thats currently on the drive and reformat it for your macos install. Both fat32 and exfat have advantages and disadvantages. How to format a usb external disk for mac osx using disk.
To format drives using this software, you need to first locate the drive in this pc for windows 8 and later versions or my computer for windows 7 and older versions folder. The problem with reusing a rewritable dvd is that apple didnt exactly make it easy. Apr 14, 2020 as long as we format the external hard drive to one of these 2 file systems, it can be shared between mac and windows. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac apple. Mac allows you to do this without the need to install a thirdparty utility. Os xs disk utilitywhich enables you to format, partition, repair, and perform other kinds of maintenance on disks including ssds, flash drives, and disk imagesis good for what it does. How to format a drive for mac and pc compatibility macyourself.
Macdisk is a 32bit application and runs under all recent versions of windows vista and 78 included, even 64 bits. Mac is obviously a very much different operating system from windows, let alone their features and steps to format a hard drive. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. Format usb or external hard drive for mac using mac disk utility.
In the main interface, right click the partition on that need. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Hard drive format software for mac mac disk format software. Import email, contacts, and calendar from an outlook. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Therefore, it is necessary to present a tutorial guide here to format or partition a hard drive within mac os. Apple file system apfs and in the disk utility help article. You can run it on your mac, and use it to format external hard drive or device on your mac. Downloading center solutions for macpc data and file. Hfs is the hierarchical file system, the native volume format used on modern macintosh computers.
Remember, this will erase all the files on the drive. Format external hard drive or usb drive for mac easeus. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac. Converting from mac to windows 10 and pcs microsoft. How to format a disk to ntfs using mac os x ask different. How do i make ntfs format for partition i apple community. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac. Best 7 free disk format tools for windows flash drive repair. The latter requires to you to use a command line interface, while the former uses a graphical user interface. Initially external disks may be formatted for windows and after you connect it to your mac it appears in the device list in the finder, but is a read only disk meaning that you cant write to it in its current format. Plug your hd into the mac and open disk utility, which. Right click on the flash drive and click on format option.
Formatting this drive with windows, mac or linux may cause a performance decrease. Mar 03, 2020 if you are on an earlier operating system like windows 7, xp, etc. Jul 05, 2017 to format a drive on a mac, youll need the builtin disk utility application. Click the file menu and select load file system from device. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. Click on the kingston format utility link to initialize the utility download. May 29, 2018 to format external drive to file system compatible with mac and pc, connect the drive to your computer and follow the detailed steps given below take formatting hard drive to exfat in windows 7 for example. Launch disk utility from the launch pad on mac or find disk utility from finder. Mar 15, 2018 to format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format. When the driver is installed, you format your ntfs disks with disk utility where you select windows nt filesystem as the format. So you might want to use other applications to format your external storage devices. Kingston format utility download 2020 latest for windows. Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats.
Both windows and mac os offer builtin disk formatting tool. Choose the exfat file system in the list and click start. I havent tried this one, but it should also do the job. We cannot archive that from outlook for mac to outlook for windows. The release date of usb disk storage format tool for mac is unknown and we cannot say for sure if it will be released at all. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac.
Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility. Mac2sfm length 1,684,393 bytes, utility to convert macintosh containers to multistream ntfssfm files, full version server 1. To format a drive on a mac, youll need the builtin disk utility application. Then i would suggest you to search for a third party software which directly converts the to ntfs format for windows operating system. You can format a disk or volume using one of the following file system formats. However, the formatted data can be recovered by data recovery software. Export or backup email, contacts, and calendar to an outlook. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. If you are using a mac, you can run the builtin disk utility to quickly format a hard drive or external hard drive under mac os. Just run it on your mac, it will show all the hard drives and external devices on your mac.
Macdisk is an utility for reading, writing and formatting apple macintosh magnetic media on an ibm compatible pc, without any hardware modification of the computer and without any addon. However, single files on a fat32 drive cant be larger than 4gb. To format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format. For windows, it offers quick format feature when you rightclick the hard drive on the computer. In disk utility on your mac, you can format an external disk for a windows computer. To format external drive to file system compatible with mac and pc, connect the drive to your computer and follow the detailed steps given below take formatting hard drive to exfat in windows 7 for example. The solution to obtain the best possible performance is to format the drive with the kingston format utility located below. Its worth noting that starting with mac os high sierra 10. Click the format popup menu, then choose a volume format. Windows uses ntfs and mac os uses hfs and theyre incompatible with each other. It is the fastest way to format an external hard drivedevice under mac os. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac cnet. How to format a flash drive to work on os x and windows. This type of file system is the right choice to be usable for.
Fuse for macos is a free and opensource ntfs driver that can enable. But before writing data onto a new, blank disc, you must first format it. File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple. For example, in windows xp my computer is equivalent to this pc on windows 10. Simple and easy to use, macdrive is recognized as the leader for accessing mac disks from windows for almost 20 years. Macs on os x cant format or write to ntfs formatted drives, they can read from it though. You can export contacts and calendar from one windows machine with outlook to another windows machine. This opens a new window, where you can set file system, allocation unit size, and change volume label for the. Aug 16, 2017 download smartdisk fat32 format utility 1. Go to open disk utility, which is located under applications in the finder menu. Disk utility is a smart hard drive format tool built in mac system. If you only use a mac computer, you can format your thumb drive so it can work on windows systems.
Macclean360 is one of the best disk cleaning and management software for mac os. If you are a personal user, you can try its professional edition. Ntfs is built for windows operating system therefore it is not supported by mac. Browse and download the latest software, apps, utilities, plugins, and firmware content. Every mac made today can burn dvdrw discs, and if your mac has a superdrive, you can burn dvdrw discs, too. You can also open a finder window, select applications in the sidebar, and head to utilities disk utility. Automatically back up all your important files from your computer to your storage device. Be absolutely sure you have your files off the drive and that youve selected the correct drive you want to format. If you are not comfortable with the previous method. It will automatically locate the connected drive, and you can load it. How to format new or second hard drive on windows 10mac.
Locate your usb stick under this pc, rightclick on it and select the format option. Quickly determine the condition of the drive in your. Hierarchical file system plus, also known as mac os extended, is the primary file system format used in mac computers. Formatting a disk or volume erases all the files on it. Before format external hard drive in mac, you should know about the file systems offered by disk utility. Seagate backup plus is preformatted exfat for compatibility with both mac and windows computers. Click erase to begin erasing your disk and every container and volume within it. If you work on windows computer and need to read or write files from hdd, ssd or flash drive formatted under. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. Dec 29, 2015 windows uses ntfs and mac os uses hfs and theyre incompatible with each other.
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