Reformat external drive on mac os x tech with ease. Dec 29, 2014 toshiba canvio,slim,connect, basics, 100gb 200gb 300gb 400gb 500gb 1tb, 2tb, 3tb, 4tb, 5tb, 6tb 7tb 8tb 9b 10tb 20tb, 40gb 50gb 60gb 70gb 80gb 90gb. Then, you can share external hard drive between mac and pc. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. You can format the external hard drive or usb drive to make it compatible with both mac and windows machines. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag.
After contacting gtech, which tried its best to be helpful, i was presented with only two known solutions. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. Before you can use it though, you need to properly format or reformat a hard drive so that it will become compatible or readable with the operating system that you are using. How to reformat your toshiba portable hard drive to mac os x. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. There was a new apple setting with the mac operating system version 10. And when youre not bothered about jazzy colors for your hard drive. All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your mac. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. To do this, shut down or restart your mac, switch it back on and immediately press these four keys together for at least 20 seconds. The newest macs ship with a recovery partition rather than a separate external reinstall disk, and if youve ever rebooted a newer mac, imac, macbook air, or macbook pro with an ssd from the recovery partition to reformat the drive, you may have noticed that by default the security options button is greyed out in the disk utility options, seemingly preventing a. Select the volume format from the volume format popup.
Recovery mode was ok but couldnt erase the boot volume nor mount it via disk utility i just got unable to delete the core storage logical volume. If you are using a mac, you can run the builtin disk utility to quickly format a hard drive or external hard. Highlight the physical drive you wish to reformat and on the menu at the top to the right select erase. If disk utility is not working to reformat the drive, this command will work for you. It also erases the hidden recovery and efi partitions. Learn how to use macos recovery to reinstall the mac operating system on your builtin drive or an external drive. Macos external drive not showing not reformatting fix.
Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Connect the hard drive or usb key to the mac launch disk utility, located in applications utilities locate the drive name from the left hand side of disk utility and click on it. In the lefthand side inside of disk utility you will see a list of all the connected hard drives. How to format an external hard drive for mac hddmag. Youll want to do it before you sell your machine, for sure, but its also one of the steps you take when you. In this post, im going to show you how to format your external drive for a maccompatible. Use the exfat file system and never format your external. How to reformat your toshiba portable hard drive to mac os x 1. With advanced data erasure technology, super eraser for mac can easily format the hard drive under macos 10. How to reformat mac external harddrive for pc march 2014. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. If there is a second toshiba disk listed repeat the same this is the subfolder back up.
For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a pc and mac. For example, here wed type select disk 2 finally, type clean and press enter. Apr 14, 2020 by this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for mac and pc without losing any data. Read about it and found that id have to reformat it in mac os extended journaled.
What disk utility looks like in lion through yosemite. But if you connect it to a macbook, you will find that the operating system cannot recognize it. Following the erasing of your macs hard drive, you are returned to the os x utilities options. Os x extended journaled should be selected if you are going to use the drive as a system or boot drive on macos. Youll learn in this article how to get your toshiba drive working on your mac. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. How to reformat reinstall os x without recovery disk or. With my previous laptops pcs, ive always stored my data on an external hard drive. Formatting a drive will erase all data and partitions on the disk. From this you can select one of two options in order to restore the operating system. It turns out that most of the time, mac doesnt recognize external hard drives, usb flash drives, pen drives, sd cards, etc. Please see the link below for instructions on how to format the drive on a windows computer. For instructions on how to format your hard drive on a mac, please reference the following links.
I am trying to send pictures to army buddies and i need them to be able to read and write on the even if they have a pc. It should look as though your mac has started again. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them. Trying the same format with another leopard machine produced the same results, and trying a format from the os x 10. External hard disk drive hdd internal hard disk drive hdd support hard drives hdds. Sep 18, 2015 most of the external storage drives like portable hard drive come preformatted with fat32 file system. Rightclick the hard drive and choose wipe hard drive.
If you find your external hard drive is ntfs format, thats what the cause is. Osx extended journaled will encrypt all data on the drive, making it more secure and accessible only via a password. How to format a hard drive on macs running os high sierra 10. How to properly formatreformat a hard drive for mac os. Aug, 2018 need to format portable hard drive for mac and pc if you have a portable hard drive with ntfs file system, you can use it in windows computer easily. If a wireless network is available, you can choose it from the wi. Two methods to change seagate external hard drives from readonly back to readwrite, so that you can edit, delete, and rename files on this seagate external hard drive. Erase and reformat a storage device in disk utility on mac apple. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing.
Most of the external storage drives like portable hard drive come preformatted with fat32 file system. Toshiba hard drive support thank you for choosing toshiba for all your storage device needs. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. Formatting a hard drive is the best way to start from scratch on a geeky project. Need to format portable hard drive for mac and pc if you have a portable hard drive with ntfs file system, you can use it in windows computer easily. Click on the toshiba hard drive, then click partition. If you have a mac lying around, you can plug the drive into a mac and back up the files. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. You can reformat a hard drive on mac os x by using disk utility. If you have any files you want to save, copy them to another storage device. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard drive. Great fix for sd cards, flash drives and all other external hard drives that are not working with your mac system. If this helped you out show some support below and keep the blog going any amount is appreciated.
How to format external hard drives on macs running os. Dec, 2019 open disk management tool by rightclicking on start menu icon and then select disk management. How to format an external drive in os x by shujaa imran jan 2, 2016 mac most external drives ship in formats that are universally recognised amongst nearly all operating systems fat, im looking at you, but there may be times where you might want to completely wipe a drive andor set it up to be compatible with apples mac lineup only. Toshiba consumer hard drive support toshiba storage.
How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system. Apr 22, 20 choose ok and let the secure erase proceed, when finished you will have a blank primary partition that has been securely formatted. Select the hard drive where you want to install the os x and then click the erase tab on the right. This command erases the entire selected disk, including all its files and partitions whether. Now right click on the external drive and click on format option doublecheck the drive name and capacity to make sure you are going to format the right drive. This process wont actually convert the file system.
Another window will pop up listing the drives on your machine on the left and a volley of things you can do on the right. How can i reformat the internal drive and install mountain. Step 1 connect the external hard drive you want to format to your mac, then start the disk utility app that you can find under applications utilities. If you are techy and use windows and mac computers frequently, then you might need to transfer data between mac and pc. By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for mac and pc without losing any data. How to fix seagate external hard drive readonly on mac. This thing is still unknown for many users but doesnt worry its not complex.
In this dropdown box, you are allowed to choose different format. Include seagate, samsung, western digital and other hdds. Ntfs is a file system that is optimal for windowsbased computer. Reformatting an external hard drive for use with mac osx is not as.
Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. A western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac osx. Or copy and paste your photos, music, movies or documents onto your drive. Then proceed to highlight your computers hard drive. Apple mac machines support a different file system. You buy a canvio basics when you dont want the frills that drive the price of a hard drive up. Toshiba makes it easy with a choice of spacious storage solutions for your desk, or your life on the move. Bought this great toshiba portable hard drive for my macbook to use to store files, essentially as another drive. How to format toshiba harddrive for mac apple community. The incompatibility of the file system is the main cause of the errorexternal hard drive read only on mac. Fixing a mac fusion drive that disk utility cant erase. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another. Open the disk utility app on your mac using one of the following methods, depending.
Be sure to doublecheck this you could accidentally wipe the wrong drive if you select the wrong disk here. First, back up the data on the macformatted drive if you have anything important on it. Once you have reformatted your toshiba canvio advance on your mac, you can then hook up it to time machine. The toshiba canvio basics 1tb portable hard drive is one of the best selling drives on the marketplace. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Go back to finder, click on the icon for the toshiba and click get info youll see that the format listed is now mac os x youre good to go. I do not wish to use a partition as i want to access the hard drive through mac and windows at the same time on my laptop and i also want to be able to access the mac things on a. A hard drive or hard disk can be used in any type of computer, whether for pc windows or for mac.
How to partition, format, or reformat an internal or external. This is useful if a drive is being used under both operating system osto move files between the two environments. Choose the exfat partition style for complete mac windows compatibility, or you can use mac os extended journaled for a very secure mac readwrite only option. Immediately after the startup sound, press and hold the c key to start up from cd. Jan 02, 2016 how to format an external drive in os x by shujaa imran jan 2, 2016 mac most external drives ship in formats that are universally recognised amongst nearly all operating systems fat, im looking at you, but there may be times where you might want to completely wipe a drive andor set it up to be compatible with apples mac lineup only. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Now enter the volume label as you need and change the file system for exfat and click ok. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac.
I would like to reformat it so that i can use it on my laptop both with windows and mac os at the same time. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. When the installer screen appears, do not click continue. It runs os x mavericks, and parallels desktop 9 for mac. For the life of me, i cannot understand why apple would hide this setting by default. My mac mini w fusion drive thats a hard disk and an ssd pretending to be a single volume for better performance froze and wouldnt boot. Open disk utility, select the drive not the macintosh hd volume, open the erase tab, set the format to mac os extended journaled, and press the erase button. Now, i have a new macbook pro and all my data is still on that external hd. Yes, its recommended to format the drive on a windows computer.
Go to finder, click on the icon for the toshiba and click get info youll see. Feb 21, 2020 rightclick your hard disk and select get info. To set up an external drive for the first time, attach it to your mac and then launch disk utility from the applications utilities folder in. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. So be sure to safeguard that data against mishaps or mistakes. Pick your toshiba drive in the external drives list. Mac doesnt recognize external hard drive, how to fix. Go to disk utility if you dont know where that is type it into the magnifying glass spot. Or you can choose wipe hard drive to completely delete the hard drive. Step 2 on the left side of the utilities screen, find the name of the external hard drive you want to format and select it. Since a good connection is a basic condition for secondary hard drives working on the mac, we need to try these things step by step. The macs hard drive has now been securely erased, entirely from the builtin recovery partition, and without the need of an external boot drive or disk.
How to reinstall macos from macos recovery apple support. Clean your hard drive when you reach the os x utilities window, click on the disk utility option displayed on it. Store with confidence the canvio basics is built to toshibas worldclass quality standards, offering timetested reliability and comes with a 1year standard limited. When i tried to install it it said installation failed. Instead, well just be wiping the drive and starting over from scratch. Both mac os x and windows allow users to format their hard drives using builtin utilities. I attached a mac formatted lacie 320gb ruggedized drive to the pc and opened computer management to reformat the drive. Great fix for sd cards, flash drives and all other external.
Here are the steps to partition an external hard drive for mac and windows pc, which is a little tricky. Toshiba external hard drive how to set up on mac youtube. Such fat 32 drives can be used on both windows and mac os x without any faults. If you are going to resell, donate or give away your mac hard driveexternal hard drive, super eraser for mac is your best choice to format the hard drive and permanently destroy all data.
How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Please note that reformatting the drive will erase all the information on the drive. Should i just wait until i get the new laptop and attempt to reformat the drive on it. Reformatting 3tb wd my book for mac to windows wd community. Why reformat your toshiba canvio advance on your mac. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. Jan 08, 2020 why reformat your toshiba canvio advance on your mac. For some mac models, the partition option would be greyed out in disk utility. So, we suggest that its better to use a pc to partition an external hard drive for macos and windows. Each physical drive is shown with the partitions of that drive nested below.
How to fix toshiba external hard drive not showing upworking. Both windows and mac os offer builtin disk formatting tool. So if you are formatting a drive that has already been used, be sure to copy any files you will ever want to see again onto a computer or backup drive. However, if you want to convert ntfs to exfat to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc, 3 steps are required. Mar 07, 2018 if disk utility is not working to reformat the drive, this command will work for you. How to recover data from formatted external hard drive on mac.
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