But, how to backup external hard drive before formatting. How to backup external hard drive before formatting. Formatting a hard drive is the best way to start from scratch on a geeky project. Just keep in mind if you want to use your drive also for os xs time machine backups, we advise you to format your drive through mac because there is an additional step to make drive compatible. The quickest way to do this is a simple spotlight search. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows.
If youd also like to use some of the hard drive space for storing other files, youll need to partition the drive into two volumes. May 09, 2019 the best external hard drives for mac in 2020. To use hfsexplorer, connect your macformatted drive to your windows pc and launch hfsexplorer. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. First, back up the data on the mac formatted drive if you have anything important on it. Give the drive a descriptive name and leave the default settings. Basically, formatting is the process of preparing the storage devices such as hard disk drive, solidstate drive, usb flash drive, or any other for initial use. Apple time machine 101 seagate style seagate support us. It seems they formatted the drive to the mac format, but i have no way to access the data, at least i.
The tool can be used for recovering data from various brands of formatted external hard drive in a matter of minutes. Before you get deep, it is important that you understand what is drive formatting. Jan 02, 2017 at this point, you can proceed to the next section to format your mac backup partition. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive.
The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Its necessary and good for your data because the process of formatting your toshiba hard drive to be used on mac also includes erasing of all the data from the drive. Common issues that arise with formatted hard drives formatting the hard drive is a solution to a number of problems, such as to gain more space in your mac, to refresh a slow or unresponsive mac, to get rid of unwanted programs or malware, to install a new operating system and a lot more. You dont need to format the hard drive every time you can choose a filesystem while formating the drive so the hard drive or usb drive work on both mac and pc. Just like windows, macos also gives us a seamless option to format hard drive for mac and pc. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. In this guide, well show you how to format an external hard drive so you can not only get rid of the. How to format external hard drive disk on mac using disk utility. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. How to backup mac to an external hard drive 5 steps. If the builtin disk came apfsformatted, dont change it to mac os extended. For instance, is the hard drive internal or external. Click the file menu and select load file system from device.
Before formatting any hard drive, its a good idea to backup any data or files you want to save before formatting. Feb 03, 2020 are you formatting the disk that came built into your mac. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. Mar 30, 2019 for windows youll likely need to use ntfs for your backup drive. Once you plug in a hard drive and set up time machine, it will work automatically in the background, continuously saving copies of all your files, applications, and system files i.
The application will first quickly scan some easytoget files on the formatted hard drive. It will automatically locate the connected drive, and you can load it. Formatting of external drive for both mac and windows backup. You can format a drive using the disk utility in mac. How to format an external drive to work with mac from ntfs to mac os extended. Im usually change hard drives to a bigger capacity ones and sold the old ones to others. In the resulut, your external hard drive will work just fine with mac and windows. Then you want to find the solution to unformat your mac hard drive to recover your files on it. I can think of a few ways to handle this, but was hoping people could chime in on best practices. Before formatting any hard drive, its a good idea to backup. You dont need to format the hard drive every time you can choose a filesystem while formating the drive so the hard drive or usb drive work on both mac and pc so to get rid of these situations we bring here a guide that will help you to format your drive which works on both platforms and you dont need to format and backup data every time. Transferring data from a mac to pc via an external hard drive. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp.
Wiping also called formatting a hard drive is a good way to start fresh as well as clear data before selling it to a stranger. Heres what you need to know, along with our toprated applefriendly drives. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. 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. For instructions on how to format your hard drive on a mac, please reference the following links. Formatting and reformatting a drive erases everything. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. At this point the backup disk is selected and the next time machine backup will start in 120 seconds 2.
How to read and access mac hard drive on window pc. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Well show you everything you need to know about the. Feb 27, 2019 accidentally, you formatted the hard drive on your mac. Heres what to do if your device is not detected in windows and mac. Copying the files from your mac to an external drive allows you to save data on your own terms. How to recover formatted mac hard drive by formatting a hard drive on mac, you can fix a few hard drive issues and protect it from virus attack. If you have a mac lying around, you can plug the drive. You can use your toshiba canvio drive as a destination for your time machine backups but you can only use drives formatted as mac os extended journaled file system for a time machine backup. Now that you know which format to use, check out our guide on how to format your hard drive on. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. As complicated as that might sound, its not really difficult to format a hard drive in any version of windows. Looking to add storage, or for a smart way to back up your mac.
If you need to erase your disk before installing high sierra or later for the first time on that disk, choose mac os extended journaled. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods revealed. Would like to create a clone image on an external hard drive to be able to immediately restore if necessary. How to format your hard drive seagate support canada. How you format a mac hard drive is entirely dependent on what kind of drive you plan on formatting. As youll see, however, knowing how to back up a mac to an external hard drive. Jul 03, 2019 thus, you should backup external hard drive. For instance, users want to write data to and read data from, to do a clean installation of the windows system, to get rid of a virus or malware, to erase the data before giving the drive to someone else or throwing it away, or some other reasons. Seagate backup plus desktop user manual optional formatting. How to recover formatted hard drive on mac updated in 2019. Nov 06, 2019 how to wipe clean an external hard drive. How to format seagate drive for mac and pc quickly and. Well i have an external hard drive that was formatted in ntfs on an xp machine not too long ago.
Partition a hard drive for macos time machine and windows 10. Gtechnology portable external hard drive 2tb from the sleek design to the pre formatting, 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. Get through this article and get the ways of recovering formatted mac hard drive data. Mar 19, 2020 to format a hard drive means to erase any information on the drive and to set up a file system so your operating system can read data from, and write data to, the drive. Using it, you can erase a hard drive, create new partitions, and even repair your disk as well. A stepbystep guide to backing up mac to an external hard drive step 1. Are you about to install macos high sierra or later on the disk. External hard drives back up your most important files, but what happens when they malfunction. Mac os x and windows can both read and write to disks in the fat or exfat format. Windows cant normally read mac formatted drives, and will offer to erase them instead. Feb 12, 2019 get a backup before going ahead and formatting your hard drive for windows, you should get a backup. With easeus data recovery wizard the accomplished data recovery software, you can easily achieve your goal of recovering the formatted hard drive on your mac. Just today it wont let me access the drive and it is telling me that i will need to format the drive before. Youtube video showing formatting a seagate hard drive for mac.
How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Please keep in mind that reformatting will result in the loss of all the data on the hard drive so make sure you back up your data elsewhere before starting. Time machine, however, gives you the possibility to create an automatic backup of the data on your hard drive before formatting it. Here are the best mac hard drives and external storage options in 2020. What else, you may want to change the usage of your external hard drive, and youd like to format it without abandoning the data, backup external hard drive before formatting can keep the data safe.
Dec 29, 2015 windows will format the drive as exfat and youll be able to use the drive on both windows and mac. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. Open airport utility, then select your base station and click edit to view its settings. When the application is open, select the files you want to retrieve from.
Whenever you are planning to format your toshiba hard drive for mac, its always suggested to take a backup of the drive you are going to format. For example, you plan to backup dvds to mac hard drive or store other files and need to format an external hard drive for macos to extend storage space you are selling your mac computer and formatting mac startup disk drive to make it clean and new without any personal data. How to format an external hard drive the easy way in 2020. Feb 09, 2020 if you read my previous post about how to format an external drive for mac, you know that i bought a 2tb seagate expansion external hard drive and managed to create two partitions on the disk one for mac backup purposes, and the other for personal use. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. But if youre only formatting your seagate drive for mac, youll see all you need to know in the first 3 minutes.
Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. Best way to format external hard drive used for backup. Mac os x volume from a drive, or use a new drive as a fully compatible time machine backup drive. Mac backed up at best buy, but because my mac broke, now i only have a windows computer. How to use mac formatted external hard drive on windows. Run mac os x on an appletv with an external hard drive how to. You can set the name to whatever you like, but set the format to mac os extended journaled and set the scheme to guid partition map, then. Some people are asking for a way to format a hard drive for mac. The best external hard drives for mac in 2020 pcmag. If you want to format your external hard drive to work with mac and windows computers, you should use exfat. The operating system has an inbuilt tool, which is known as disk utility. Apple enthusiasts love the sleek design and easy user interface of the companys devices.
Dec, 2019 you dont need to format the hard drive every time you can choose a filesystem while formating the drive so the hard drive or usb drive work on both mac and pc. How to backup a mac to an external hard drive in 2020. How to format a hard drive for mac internal, external or flash. Yet setting up a backup of your mac can be frustrating since most external hard drives must be formatted before being used. All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your mac. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. Disk utility shows the recommended mac format by default. Connect the drive to a usb port on your airport base station, then turn it on. Youll want to do it before you sell your machine, for sure, but its also one of the steps you take when you. Backup disks you can use with time machine apple support. Find out which hard drive can help increase your storage or safely back up your mac. Whether you are trying to backup mac to an external hard drive, wipe out any personal information and sell the computer, or even use a new operating system, you need to format the hard drive on your mac or pc. Preparing your backup disk for a backup of os x carbon copy.
Follow these instructions if you plan to share an external hard drive between pc and mac computers. 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. Choose either apfs or mac os extended journaled to format as a mac volume. Now either because of time, corruption or because it may have been formatted for a mac when i plug it into my pc i cant access it. While its convenient to purchase the hard drive that will work with your computer right out of the box, most external hard drives can also be reformatted so youre not limited to your initial choice. There may be occasions when you need to format mac hard drive. Backing the hard drive up to an external hd is tricky, though, which is why weve put together this guide on how to backup a. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive.
Since most external hard drives are formatted for pcs, before the backup of your mac begins you need to format the hard drive for macos. Because mac os x mountain lion does not natively support writing to an external ntfs drive, you must erase your hard disk and format it using a compatible file system. How to use toshiba external hard drive on mac solved. Instead, well just be wiping the drive and starting over from scratch. Formatting of any kind can leave the hard drive totally empty by erasing all your data. Format mac hard drive with time machine formatting an external hard drive with time machine is as easy as formatting it with disk utility. Three weeks ago, i bought a brand new 2tb seagate expansion to backup my macbook pro before i updated it to the latest macos. Apr 10, 2019 backup disks you can use with time machine time machine can back up to an external storage device connected to your mac or supported airport base station. If you are using an external hard drive, or even an sd card or a usb stick, make sure that it is properly connected to your computer via the appropriate port. Plug in the external hard drive into mac and open the finder.
So to get rid of these situations we bring here a guide that will help you to format your drive which works on both platforms and you dont need to format and backup data every time. Is there a way to completely format or erase the data from hard drive so it cannot be recovered by another user. Best external drives for mac and pc interchangeable 2020. First, back up the data on the macformatted drive if you have anything important on it. Make sure that the usb drive is formatted for time machine. But unfortunately it bit the dust and i decided to get a pc.
Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them. Heres how to format a drive using a mac including how to format a drive for windows and mac so the contents can be read on both platforms, and what format to use for time machine. Partition a hard drive for macos time machine and windows. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. But its a good idea to also create a third partition on your disk that both macos and windows 10 can use. Oct 09, 2019 this wikihow teaches you how to format a seagate hard drive on a mac computer. Why need to format external hard drive for mac and pc.
How to format an external hard drive for mac youtube. A hard drive can be used on any type of computer pc or mac. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive. If you want to transfer files from a mac to windows pc and vice versa using an external portable hard drive then you have to have the external drive formatted in a. This process wont actually convert the file system. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. I know mac operating system doesnt fully supports ntfs formatted drive. When formatting a disk for storage use between mac and. Formatting the drive also allows you to switch to a different file. When done, quit disk utility to return to the utilities window.
You can format your external hard drive from either the pc or mac. This also allows you to restore time machine backups on windows. Therfore, you can connect backup plus desktop to a windows pc without formatting the hard drive. Unformat mac hard drive recover formatted hard drive on mac. How to backup a mac to time machine with any hard drive. Partition a hard drive for macos time machine and windows 10 backups. Apple time machine 101 seagate style seagate support canada. With exfat, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years. It can also back up to a mac or networkattached storage device nas on your network. How to reformat my external hard drive for windows 10. Here is short video on how you can read or access the hard drive that was formatted for mac, using a windows. Create a bootable install usb drive of mac os x 10.
How to format a hard drive for mac that would be sold to another person. It is very important to save the integrity of your data on the hard. Apr 23, 2014 its a good idea to backup your data for your mac using time machine. Remo recover mac provides easy steps to restore data from the external hard drive that is formatted accidentally or intentionally.
If you dont plan on using the drive for time machine, skip steps 5 to 11 below and continue with step 12. I can find it under device manager and disk management but thats it. Would you like to see a video showing you how to format your seagate drive. I have purchased a 1tb portable external seagate hard drive and i would like to use it with both my mac and windows computer. If you have a mac lying around, you can plug the drive into a mac and back up the files. People might need to format a hard drive or an external hard drive in windows 10 for various reasons. There are a number of instances when users lose their important data due to formatting. Formatting the drive will permanently erase all the data and files stored on the hard drive forever.
However, ntfs is not fully compatible with mac computers. Mac owners have good machines, with plenty of battery life and power. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. This wikihow teaches you how to format a seagate hard drive on a mac computer.
Buying and using an external hd is one thing, getting the most out of it is quite another. Aug 30, 2019 formatted external hard drive without backup and want to recover the data. Follow along for how to back up a mac to time machine with any hard drive. Back to the main topic, below is a step by step instruction on how to format reformat a hard drive for mac os. Using your toshiba external hard drive to backup to. It has been working great on windows 7 for a couple of weeks. 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. Any hard drive can be formatted for mac and here is how you do it. In this guide, we will show you how to back up and format an external hard drive on macos. To put it simply, if you want to share external hard drive between mac and pc, you need to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. Your backup plus desktop is formatted as ntfs for compatibility with windows out of the box.
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