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#Formatting external hard drive for mac and pc how to#
#Formatting external hard drive for mac and pc for mac#
#Formatting external hard drive for mac and pc mac os x#
#Formatting external hard drive for mac and pc for windows 10#
#Formatting external hard drive for mac and pc Pc#

After that, the newly formatted disk will open automatically. If a pop-up appears telling you to format the disk, click Format Disk.

Check the Quick Format box, and click Next.

But if you want the external hard drive to also work on a Mac, you should choose exFAT, which is an upgraded version of FAT32. Windows will choose NTFS for you because that’s Microsoft’s native filing system.

Go to File System and choose a format.

Just choose among the drive letters still available. Letters that have already been assigned to other drives will not be on this list, so don’t worry if there are missing letters.

Next, choose what drive letter you want to use.

If you want to use the rest of the space, enter the maximum disk space indicated above it.

Then indicate how big you want the partition to be.

Right-click the unallocated space on your drive and select New Simple Volume.

This will split the hard drive, with one part becoming unallocated space. The remaining space will be displayed in megabytes.

Enter an amount of space that you want to shrink your volume by.

If this option is not available to you, reformat the drive to NTFS and try again.

Right-click on your external hard drive and select Shrink Volume.

The Windows Search Box is the magnifying button icon in the bottom-left corner of your screen.

Open the Windows search box, type “diskmgmt.msc,” and hit enter.

#Formatting external hard drive for mac and pc how to#

How to Partition an External Drive in Windows 10

#Formatting external hard drive for mac and pc for mac#

This means you’re splitting the drive into two formats, one for Mac and one for PC. Now you have a hard drive formatted for Windows, but what if you wanted to use it with Mac computers also? One easy way to have a hard drive that works with Mac and Windows is by partitioning it.

Click OK when the Format Complete pop-up screen appears.

You can format external drive to use on Mac and PC. Depending on the size of the drive, and if there are files to be deleted in it, this can take a few to several minutes to finish. Windows formated drive doesn't work on mac and vice versa.

Check the Quick Format box, and click Start.

Note: The exFAT file system only works on Mac 10.6.5 or later, and Windows XP SP3 or later. But if you want the external hard drive to also work on a Mac, you should choose exFAT. By default, Windows computers will choose NTFS (New Technology File System) for you because that’s the native Microsoft filing system.

Right-click on the external hard drive and click Format.

Formatting your drive will wipe out all the data in it. Note: If you already used your external hard drive on a PC, be sure to back up any files on it. You can also find it in the left sidebar of File Explorer.

That’s all there is to it, now the drive that was once formatted for Mac is. Here, under File System, select either NTFS or exFAT using the dropdown and click Start to format the drive. Open the File Explorer, right-click on the drive and then choose Format.

#Formatting external hard drive for mac and pc Pc#

If your external hard drive is working, your computer will automatically detect it, and the drive will appear under Devices and Drives next to your internal drives in the This PC window. Connect your drive to the PC and follow the steps below. Connect your external hard drive to a Windows computer.So if your external hard drive already has important files on it, make sure to back them up before proceeding. Here is the step by step guide you need to follow to format the hard disk on. So, whether you wish to format the internal hard drive, external drive, or a USB flash drive, the procedure is the same for all. Note: Formatting your drive will erase all the existing files on it. How to Format a Hard Drive on Mac: Formatting is a very simple procedure that is operated in a similar way for all sorts of storage media.

#Formatting external hard drive for mac and pc for windows 10#

How to Format a Hard Drive for Windows 10 Here’s how to format an external hard drive for Windows 10 or partition it. You might want a drive that works with Macs and PCs, or maybe you want to partition it, which will split it up into two different formats. We’ll be back with new Howto Guide soon.While most external hard drives are already designed to work for Windows computers, there are times when you need to reformat one. We would really appreciate if you share this article. Again, please subscribe us for more such How to guides, tech updates and much more or like us/follow us on Twitter, facebook or Google+. We hope you liked this Howto guide, please let’s us know if you know any other workaround. Watch this video to know how to format any Hard Disk drive for Mac, Windows or any other OS. We have also attached a video guide here. It has notable limitations, including difficulties with files of size larger than 4 GB.

#Formatting external hard drive for mac and pc mac os x#

Mac OS X supports this format for both reading and writing, as does Windows. However, it is still widely used as almost all Flash-based drives use this format. FAT32 is a legacy file system in the Windows world. Now you can use your external hard disk only with Mac systems or Mac OS. But what if we want to use the same hard disk drive on Mac, Windows or any other OS? Well, there are few workarounds like formatting HDD to MS-DOS, FAT32 or NTFS-3G.