Fat32 has several limitations, including a 4 gb perfile limit. If a wireless network is available, you can choose it from the wifi menu in the menu bar. Heres how to format a drive using a mac including how to format a drive. Heres what you need to know, along with our toprated applefriendly drives. This insures that you will have a compatible hard drive with. Commonly when you want to connect an external hard drive to laptop or computer all you need to do is just plug and play thats it. How to reformat my hard drive using my macbook air quora. Compare portable, usb and external hard drive models for office and home and shop online. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Discover the world of external hard drives for mac. When done, quit disk utility to return to the utilities window. How do i unlock my apple macbook air with my pen drive. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac.
Ever run out of storage space and start wondering if it would be possible to take a crowbar to your new unibody macbook pro to pry it open and put another hard drive in. If you dont have a dedicated external hard drive, its. Step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. However, it is frustrating that you have to sacrifice storage space because you spent the extra money. How to factory reset a macbook air or other mac with macos. Use external storage devices with mac apple support. Some people are asking for a way to format a hard drive for mac. This formatting is also known as mac os extended journaled file system. Now, my sister does use a macbook but she also uses a dell and gaming systems for media. When the backup procedure is completed, dont rush to disconnect your device as this could cause potential disk problems. Looking to add storage, or for a smart way to back up your mac. Its a good idea to backup your data for your mac using time machine. 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. Creating a backup ensures a safety of your important documents and data.
How you format a mac hard drive is entirely dependent on what kind of drive you plan on formatting. Im looking to buy a portable hard drive for a family member and have noticed that a number of sites recommend i buy one meant for apple computers if i intend to use it with a mac. For instance, is the hard drive internal or external. If you want to take all the information off, i suggest you do this. Do i really need a macspecific external hard drive. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. First back up your data on you external hard drive as we are going to erase the disk in this process. Learn more about erasing hard disks on mac from apple. Use external storage devices with mac 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.
Or perhaps you are setting up an external drive for backups. It is definitely not an issue with the drive as i am able to write to the drive on windows and linux systems following these guidelines. Now i can open mac files but my asus shows the hard drive but will not open anything. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. If your mac doesnt work, you can do this using a second mac and an external hard drive caddy. While drives are sold as plugandplay, formatting prior to use will give you optimal performance and.
Download either carboncopycloner or superduper both are free to download and use for 30 days 2. The maximum individual file size for exfat is 16 eb. For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a pc and mac computer, it must be formatted to exfat or fat32 file format. You can searching for it using spotlight search or via finder application utility. I was using it and out of nowhere, it ejected itself and couldnt be read when i plugged it back in. You will learn how to format external hard drives on a mac running os high sierra 10. Choose either apfs or mac os extended journaled to format as a mac volume. Copying data on mac to external hard drive with this format will make copying much longer.
How to reinstall macos from macos recovery apple support. Because youll reformat the hard drive in a later step, just click keep a copy to. They are great for backing up data, creating extra storage space on your computer and. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. This is never the case and has proven to be the single most common. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with. How to format an external hard drive for mac youtube. Need to reset your macbook air or any other mac back to its factory settings. It can be either an ssd or a platterbased hard drive hdd. Format external hard drive without data l apple community. Disk utility can be used to format external drives as well. You can format a drive using the disk utility in mac. So, its highly recommended to create a backup of your hard drive data before restoring.
Using apples free disk utility app, you can easily format the drive, give. The easiest way to add storage to your mac is to buy an external hard. Drive speed is measured in revolutions per minute rpm, based on how fast the drive can spin. This wikihow teaches you how to format a seagate hard drive on a mac computer. How to backup mac to an external hard drive 5 steps. The hd worked on pc so i moved files off of hard drive onto pc then tried to format for mac. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. If first aid successful in fixing errors, the external drive should be available to mount. Here are some info on my mac and the drive i hope this helps. Gtechnology 1tb g drive mobile ssd rseries storage next gallery image. Disk utility shows the recommended mac format by default. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility. External usb hard drives are lightweight, portable and inexpensive.
Lets take a look at how we can erase all of the data format the hard drive successfully. That said, if you are using smaller file sizes fat32 can suffice. Which mac file system is best for an external drive. Shop staples for diamond multimedia 3port superspeed usb. The products claims it works only with pc windows, however, i have read multiple places that i can just format the drive and it will work fine with a mac. I want to fix this but in a way where i dont have to reformat my drive because i have some important files on it. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and. Apfs apple file system this is the new file system that apple bought to macs with high sierra and it will. Check on your external hard drive, click the first aid tab and select run to start running diagnostics. Gtechnology 1tb g drive mobile ssd rseries storage. I tried to format my toshiba external hard drive for asus pc use and macbook air use. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. Master boot record is appropriate for external drives used with a pc or boot camp. Use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other.
If you dont want to lose data from your hard drive, export the data or back it up before continuing. First of all you will need your installation dvd which came with your macbook pro when you purchased it and insert it into your mac. There may be occasions when you need to format mac hard drive. How to install macos or os x on a new hard drive for your mac.
Now your external drive has been formatted to be fully compatible with apple macos, and you can edit, read, and write files to it as you want. You may use disk utility application to perform hard drive partitionrelated tasks on mac operating system, such as to format, repair, erase or create hard drive partitions and end up with an erased hard drive moreover, by doing so, crucial data may be deleted by mistake from your mac. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Click the erase and enter a name and choose the format you want for the drive either apfs or macos extended journaled. To format external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. 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 restorerecover hard drive data on macbook pro, air. How to restore recover hard drive data on macbook pro, macbook air, and imac. If that sounds like you, no worriesso long as you have access to your macbook air, youll be able to use time machine and an external hard drive to create a backup of your files, documents, and other important information. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another. Instead, go back to the main desktop, locate the volume that your external hard drive represents, rightclick and select eject. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive. Restoring macbook wipes out all hard drive data including widgets and installed applications. Any hard drive can be formatted for mac and here is how you do it. How to format external disk for macbook a apple community.
How to format external hard drives on macs running os. Before formatting any hard drive, its a good idea to backup. When you take into account price, ease of use, and portability, the seagate backup plus slim is the most reliable hard. Passport not reading on mac external drives for mac wd. Its easy to reformat your hard drive using disk utility in macos or os x. By default its the disk built into your mac, named macintosh hd. The best external hard drives for mac in 2020 pcmag. Since formatting an external hard drive will erase all of its. This reduced power draw helps preserve the battery life of the mac you plug the drive into.
You can only read your elements external hard drive. In this video we look at the process of formatting a hard drive, flash drive, or ssd on an apple computer. Hi guys, my wd my passport ultra 1tb external hard drive isnt reading on my mac right now. External hard drives are not only useful for storing data but are an excellent way to transport files from one location to another. All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your mac. I am looking to purchase a seagate external hard drive for my macbook air. They are great for backing up data, creating extra storage space on your computer and transferring large amounts of data between two or more computers. If the macbook air has a usb a port, get a usb3 external drive.
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