How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. Either way there is a solution to having an existing external hard drive for mac and pc. How to install windows 10 on your mac using a boot camp. How to boot windows on your mac from external hard drive. It can also happen on a single system where it was working just fine for a long time and then suddenly stops being recognized by the operating system. Drive speed is measured in revolutions per minute rpm, based on how fast the drive can spin. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. However, one thing to note here is that this function is only available for pro and enterprise versions of windows. The best external hard drives are fast, dependable and easy to use. The best external hard drive data recovery software. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods revealed. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. With the windows external hard drive, you can load windows os on your macbook.
Buying an external hard drive for your mac is not all that different from buying one for your windows pc, except for one very important complication. Click the file menu and select load file system from device. Mac os x can read ntfs drives but cant write to them. External hard drive for mac and pc with data interchangeable. If you are transferring data from an os 10 system to an os 9 computer, or trying to access the data through os 9 with a drive formatted through os 10, you will need to have installed os 9 driverswhen you erase the drive. When you format your external hard drive, it should be formatted for mac os extended. Macs can also read and write to exfat drives thanks to the agreement made with microsoft. Gtechnology portable external hard drive 2tb from the sleek design to the preformatting, this terabytesized drive is perfect for mac users who need a little extra space and offers the transfer rate up to 140mbs for accessing all your files. It enables you to change the permissions on files and folders.
In the disk management, youll see your external hard drive as partition or. Apple mac machines support a different file system. Best external drives for mac and pc interchangeable 2020. Desktopbound and portable platterbased storage has never been cheaper. Plug in the external hard drive into mac and open the finder 2. Typically, an external hard drive that works on a windows pc uses an ntfs file system. However, if still the issue is not resolved, you can avail of professional help. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. Mar 15, 2018 to use hfsexplorer, connect your macformatted drive to your windows pc and launch hfsexplorer.
External hard drive not showing up in windows or os x. Storage devices such as external hard drives can also be available on your network. Next time you boot from the external drive, windows will complete the installation process. External hard drives, thumb drives, usb drives, flash memory cards, and devices like ipod are examples of storage devices that you can connect to your mac using thunderbolt, usb, or firewire cables, or connect wirelessly using bluetooth. Now you would be able to use the external hard disk on both the computers. Fantom drives 10tb external hard drive 7200rpm usb 3. Connect your external hard drive to your windows 10 pc. Unfortunately, it doesnt work as well with any other operating systems. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. Here are the steps to partition an external hard drive for mac and windows pc, which is a little tricky. How to share an external hard drive between macintosh and.
If you want to make use of your mac s thunderbolt port, then this is the best external hard drive for macs. Most external hard drives hd are sold in a format called ntfs, which is designed to work with windows. To use windows software on a macbook, you need the help of the thirdparty toolaomei partition assistant professional, which brings a feature called windows to go creator to help you to create a windows external hard drive. In mac os, you have to take advantage of the terminal application to reveal or view the hidden files or folders in the device. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. These steps for fixing an external hard drive not recognized on windows and mac are suitable for external hard drives of all capacities and manufacturers. Developed by microsoft, this modern file system is optimized for situations where the ntfs file system is not a feasible solution, and the file size limit of the standard fat32 file system is unacceptable. Seagate stgx400 portable 1tb external hard drive hdd. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. The right connections buying an external hard drive for your mac is not all that different from buying one for your windows pc, except for one very important complication. The 8 best external hard drives and ssds for mac and pc users in. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Just drag and drop to get set up, connect the portable hard drive to a computer for automatic recognitionno software requiredand enjoy plug and play simplicity with the included 18 inch usb 3. How to password protect external hard drives on mac and.
For mac users, youll need to reformat it, and theres no usb 3. Whether you go the software or hardware route depends on your situation. If youre looking for a macfriendly external hard drive thats built for durability, take a look at lacies rugged thunderbolt usbc portable hard drive. Use the exfat file system and never format your external.
Moving data between two systems using an external hard drive. The overall best external hard drive for mac or pc. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Password protect external hard drive on windows just like mac, windows also comes with a builtin disk encryptor called bitlocker drive encryption. Thats all because its been initialized with windows nt file system ntfs, which is primarily for pcs.
The faster ssd drives on a mac may well use an apfs file system. At this point, the windows installer has copied all the files to the external drive, and has set up a boot environment that you can start your mac from. Select your hard drive, and choose convert to mbr disk. Dec 29, 2015 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. So, we suggest that its better to use a pc to partition an external hard drive for macos and windows. Mac or windows computer not recognizing your external hard drive or flash drive. I know mac operating system doesnt fully supports ntfs formatted drive. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. If you need to format external hard drive mac or windows, you may also consider the exfat files system.
If you need to use a single external hard drive to format for mac and pc, however, there are a couple of. Jan 23, 2020 i hope you enjoyed my article on how to make an external hard drive compatible with mac and pc without reformatting. The 8 best external hard drives and ssds for mac and pc. Simplify file storage and access with this 2tb buffalo linkstation nas server. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac youtube. Lacie mobile drive 5tb external hard drive portable hdd moon silver usbc usb 3. I hope you enjoyed my article on how to make an external hard drive compatible with mac and pc without reformatting. Format and external hard drive on mac first, lets see how to format an external hard drive or usb drive in macos which works with both mac and pc platforms, first plugin your drive in macos machine. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. How to format a hard drive to work on mac and pc youtube. Sep 26, 2018 windows pc and mac use different filesystems. Apple macs can format external hard drives to the exfat file system.
Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Unlike fat32, ntfs supports windows file permissions and is more. Apr 07, 2020 the best external hard drives for 2020. How to format seagate drive for mac and pc quickly and securely. You can then rightclick in the empty space and select new simple volume to create a partition and format it with the windows ntfs or fat32 file systems. Feb 08, 2020 so, you just bought an external hard drive or a portable ssd and wanted to use it on your mac. Desktop external hard drives usually run at 7200 rpm to offer all the speed they can. The 8 best external hard drives and ssds for mac and pc users. Its fast 540 mbs read and write speeds are more than enough to transfer any file. To use hfsexplorer, connect your macformatted drive to your windows pc and launch hfsexplorer. For speeds, the real problem is the technology of the drive, though. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. Mar 21, 2020 the best external hard drives will come in handy for plenty of people working in the creative industries, who often have to store lots of large files, and will soon fill up the hard drive that comes with their mac or pc.
Can a single external hard drive work on both mac and pc. How an external drive connects to your pc or mac is second only to the type of storage mechanism it uses in determining how fast youll be able to access data. So, if you want to use an external hard drive on both windows and mac, you need to format it to a filesystem that is compatible with windows pc and mac. This means you can copy files from an external hard.
Ntfs is the most common format for new external hard drives and can be used with windows computers. Be sure to doublecheck this you could accidentally wipe the wrong drive if you select the wrong disk here. Heres how to create a fat32 partition from a windows 7 pc. For those who use both microsoft windows and apple macos, having a single external hard drive that is compatible with both operating systems could be very. Well show you everything you need to know about the. This reduced power draw helps preserve the battery life of the mac you plug the drive into. For example, here wed type select disk 2 finally, type clean and press enter. Use external storage devices with mac apple support. External hard drives formatted specifically for windows usually use ntfs. Windows operating systems will support fat 32, ntfs file format. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows.
How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. With its distinctive rubber bumpers and brushed aluminum chassis, the drive offers drop resistance up to 5 feet, crush resistance that can withstand up to a 1ton car, and ip54 water. This software is designed in such a way that you can use any storage device for the backup and restore the backup directly to your iphone. Mar 31, 2020 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. Moving data between two systems using an external hard. 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. But somehow, macos doesnt allow you to write data to the drive. How to view hidden files in a usbexternal hard drive in. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows.
If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility. Its a standard hard disk drive with an rpm of just 5,400. Aug 30, 2019 plug in the external hard drive into the system and open windows explorer by clicking on the computer section in the side bar, you will see your external hard drive get attached to your system. Apr 30, 2020 to format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. Unlike fat32, ntfs supports windows file permissions and is more stable.
Designed to work with windows or mac computers, this compact external hard drive makes backup a snap. This command erases the entire selected disk, including all its files and partitions whether. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step. To put in simple words, if you want to share the external hard drive between macintosh and windows pc, you need to format an external hard drive for the respective system. The easiest way to do that is hit cmd and the spacebar at the same time and type in disk utility to find the program. Change the partition layout from current to 1 partition. A mac can see a ntfs formatted external hard drive but cannot write to it. To format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. Bonus tip data recovery from formatted hard drive on mac. Partition hard drive for mac and windows, in 6 easy steps. Lacie rugged mini 2tb external hard drive portable hdd usb 3.
Step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. Because i own more windows pcs than mac, windows will end up getting the lions share of the external hard disk. Partition a hard drive for macos time machine and windows. This is a common problem, especially when connecting hard drives between mac os x, windows and linux. Apr 21, 2020 i have purchased a 1tb portable external seagate hard drive and i would like to use it with both my mac and windows computer. How to share an external drive between a mac and a pc. If the drive is not formatted, you may get a message saying that the drive. Restart your mac with the external windows drive 1 close any apps you may have open, then restart. How to view hidden files on a usb or external hard drive in mac.
Moving files from macformatted external hard drive to pc. External hard drive compatible with mac and pc without. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Best external hard drives for macs in 2020 techradar. Now connect the external hard drive to windows 8 computer and format it in fat32 file system. Both fat32 and exfat can be used on windows pc and mac. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide.
Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on mac. Macs can read ntfsformatted hard drives, but cant write to them. It will automatically locate the connected drive, and you can load it. To do so, select start, control panel, system and security, create and format hard disk partitions. In this video tutorial, i show you how to easily format an external hard drive to work on both a mac and a pc. This small compact ssd drive from samsung comes with both a usbc to usbc cable and a usbc to usba, meaning its perfect to use with your macbook or mac. Select the external hard drive on the lefthand side.
A terminal is the native commandline tool that comes with all mac computers. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. Feb 21, 2012 the drive should automatically mount on your mac s desktop if the finder preferences are set to show external drives. Open the disk management tool by rightclicking this pc manage disk management. Format external hard drive with windows builtin tool. For some mac models, the partition option would be greyed out in disk utility. Connect the external hard drive to your mac and copy the important data to the mac pc.
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