How To Format An External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc

Oct 15,2019 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions

• How To Format An External Hard Drive For Both Mac And Pc
• How To Format An External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc On A Mac
• How To Format An External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc

External hard drives are the storage devices used to store and retrieve digital information, personal and official data like files, documents and other stuff. These are attached to systems through FireWire or USB connection or wirelessly to transfer data from the internal drive to hard disk drives. If you are looking for new operating system or selling your old computers or laptops, then you need to set up an external hard drive for backups by erasing and formatting the existing data in the storage devices.

Part 1:　How to Format an External Hard Drive on Windows

The problem is Windows uses NFTS and Mac uses HFS. Now, Windows can’t read HFS, and Mac can’t read NTFS. That’s why you should go for the FAT and exFAT filesystems. So now carefully read the tips guide below and format an external hard drive on Mac, Windows PC. If you’re lucky, you can just right-click each partition on the Mac drive and select Delete Volume to remove the partitions. You can then right-click in the empty space and select New Simple Volume to create a partition and format it with the Windows NTFS or FAT32 file systems. The Mac drive may have an “EFI System Partition” on it.

The Windows users who are going to format external hard drive for the first time, they will get complete information and stepwise procedure of formatting drives.

Stepwise Procedure to Format Storage Device on Windows:

You can format an external hard drive or thumb drive to work seamlessly with both Mac and Windows by using the ExFAT file system. You can select the ExFAT format when using the Disk Utility to format the drive. The ExFAT format supports virtually any size hard drive and file, unlike the outdated FAT32 format. If the external hard drive is pre formatted for Mac, Disk Management will list 3 partitions and you will not be able to delete the 'Health (EFI System Partition)' because it's a protected partition. To delete this partition you have to use Microsoft Diskpart Erase utility. Please see here the instructions. Right-click and select new simple volume. The Disk Utility will automatically begin to format the external hard drive for Mac and PC. The duration of the process is based on the external drive’s total storage and RPM. After several minutes of waiting, the process will finish. Click the Done button to finish formatting the external hard drive for Mac and PC to exFAT. On Windows 10. Oct 25, 2018  I know Mac operating system doesn’t fully supports NTFS formatted drive. But if I format the Seagate external hard drive to HFS+ file system, it will not supported by my Windows computer. I want to know that what I should format the Seagate external hard drive to, so that it can be compatible both with Mac and PC. Is there any advice?

1. Before formatting an external hard drive on Windows, back up all the informational data like files, music and official data into safe place.
2. To format an external hard drive, plug in the device into system or a wall outlet.
3. After plug in hard drive into the system, you will get option to open Windows Explorer and by clicking on the computer section in the side bar, you will see your hard drive get attached to your system.
4. When you will do right click on the hard drive icon, you will get option to choose 'Format'?.
5. After that, you can opt any file system that you want to use for the operating systems.
6. Mention your hard drive with a name under Volume Label and check out the Quick Format box.
7. To initiate the formatting process, click on the start button and within a few seconds, you will get notification when the process get completed.
8. Open the hard drive in Windows Explorer and start dragging documents and files into it.

Follow the stepwise procedure to format an external hard drive and make sure it will not show similar free space as it displays on the box as the systems determine the space differently as it is marked on the box.

Video Tutorial on How to Format External Hard Drive

Part 2: How to Format an External Drive on Mac

Mac users can select any file system that supports their operating system. In order to format an external drive on Mac, you can follow stepwise procedure as discussed below:

Stepwise Procedure to Format Storage Device on Mac:

1. Before starting storage device formatting process, you need to backup all informational data in a separate folder for the future use.
2. Plug in the storage drive into Mac.
3. The drive when get connected to the system, you can see the storage device icon on the screen.
4. Now open the finder and check out the applications/utilities. After that, operate double click on the disk utility.
5. To format external hard drive, opt your storage device in the left hand sidebar and click on the erase tab.
6. After that, you will see format menu where you can select the file system that are compatible with your operating system.
7. Describe or provide a specific name to your drive and click on erase button. Within a short time span, your storage device will get formatted.
8. When you are done with the formatting process, click on the hard drive in the finder and initiate the dragging process or you can also set up as a backup storage device with Time Machine.

By following the stepwise procedure mentioned above, you can easily format the storage device on Mac.

How To Format An External Hard Drive For Both Mac And Pc

What is External Hard Drive Formatting Process?

Formatting external hard drives is a process of deleting or erasing the memory chunks to avail the space for new data. Formatting can be performed at two stages: low level and high level process. Formatting may take few hours to wipe out the existing data, but the process can be hassle-free if you get to know about stepwise instructions of how to format an external hard drive.

Low level formatting is the first process of wiping out data and existing files in the hard disk devices and at the high level, a new file system is generated. Technically, it is the process of writing a new directory structure which allows the documents and files to be overwritten and create space for the new data.

Before formatting external hard drives, backup all important data that you are going to format. Most external hard devices come with backup software that will make process much easier to do. If you have documents, music, photos saved elsewhere on computer then make sure you have copied all stuff before formatting. Remember once all the data get formatted, it will not be recovered at any cost.

File System Explained:

Before proceeding to format external hard drive, you need to know about file systems which are particularly associated with the operating systems. File systems are the key parts of translation from the physical data recording on a hard drive to the files that are read by operating systems only.

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How To Format An External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc On A Mac

Various operating systems like Mac, Windows, Linux and OS X have different file systems to organize and store digital information. The most popular file systems are as discussed below:

• NTFS (New Technology File System): NTFS is developed by Microsoft, started with Windows NT 3.0. It is also known as Window's default file system. Microsoft has launched five versions of NTFS: v1.0 released with Windows NT 3.1, v1.2 with Windows 3.51, v3.0 with Windows 2000, v3.1 and v5.0 with Windows XP. The latest version includes many features like disk usage quotas, link tracking distribution, reparse points, file-level encryption and sparse file support. Windows can write and read to NTFS formatted hard drives while OS X and Linux can read only but can't write unless it is supported by third party devices like NTFS-3G. It has maximum 16 TB file size and 256 TB volume size.
• FAT 32 (File Allocated Table): It was designed in year 1977 for floppy disks and three major file systems variants are: FAT12, FAT16 and FAT 32. The older version of FAT was quite simple and robust. FAT32 has come up with the increased number of bits which is used to address clusters. It also helps to reduce each cluster size due to which it will have great storage capacity and effectively support the large disks up to 2 TB. It can be written and read to by Linux, OS X and Windows. FAT32 offers maximum 4GB file size and 2 TB volume size.
• ExFAT (Extended File Allocated Table): It is quite similar to FAT32 and is less commonly used. ExFAT can store up to 4GB files which make it perfect for flash drives. ExFat formatted drives can be read and written by OS X and Windows.
• HFS Plus (Hierarchical File System): It is developed by Apple Inc. It serves as primary file system of OS X and also known as Mac OS Extended. For those who are operating Windows on Mac with Boot Camp, they can read HFS plus hard drives but can't write to them. However, third party tools like Paragon HFS+ assist the users to write and read to HFS+ drives. HFS plus offers 8 EiB maximum file size and volume size.

These are the popular file systems for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. For those who are running Windows computer, they can format hard drive as NTFS and for the Mac users; ExFAT will be the best and reliable option. Before formatting external hard drives, make sure you have created backup for the all important digital data. Nowadays, it is also possible to convert hard drive without losing any>Recover Your Drive

Video editors will often find that they need to share files between a PC and a Mac. Use these steps to format external hard drives for both operating systems.

Top Image via Hard Drive Labels

As a video editor or Digital Imaging Technician, you will often need to share files with others. Eventually you will find out that you may not be working on the same operating system (OS) as others. If you work solely on a Mac, but need to send files to someone working on a PC, your external hard drive needs to be set up for both operating systems. Let’s take a look at the different types of formats, and which are best for video production.

Formatting the Hard Drive

A vast majority of video production will be done on a Mac or Windows operating system, so we aren’t going to cover Linux. Hard drives set up for use on Windows machines only will often use NTFS, while Macs will use HFS+. That said, if you are using both a PC and Mac in the workflow, you’ll need to use a different format.

Image from Shutterstock

You may be using only Macs or PCs in your own office, but you will also need to take into account what type of machines your client is using. If you need to send them RAW files or an edited sequence, you will need to make sure the external hard drive is set up for both operating systems. To do this, you will need to use either exFAT or FAT32 formats. This will allow you to use the hard drive on both a Mac and PC.

FAT32 is often used among general users, but FAT32 has limitations that can affect filmmakers. FAT32 has a maximum file size of 4 GB per file. The limitation affects both Mac and PC users. A single high resolution file can easily go over 4 GB, so Fat32 may not the best format. The best format for video production is exFAT. The maximum individual file size for exFAT is 16 EB. 1 EB, or exabyte, is 1 billion GB. That said, if you are using smaller file sizes — FAT32 can suffice.

Format Hard Drive (Mac)

1. Connect the external hard drive to the computer.

2. Click Go on the top tool bar, and select Utilities.

3. Open Disk Utility.

4. Select the external hard drive on the left-hand side.

5. Click the Partition tab.

6. Change the Partition Layout from Current to 1 Partition.

7. Click Options, Select Master Boot Record, and click OK.

8. Name the hard drive with a name of your choice.

9. Click the Format drop-down menu.

10. Select exFat (or MS-DOS FAT for a FAT32 format).

11. Hit Apply, then click on Partition.

Formatting Hard Drive (Windows)

Image from Shutterstock

How To Format An External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc

1. Right-Click on the Windows icon in the lower left-hand corner.

2. Select Disk Management.

3. Right-Click on the external hard drive in the Volume tab.

4. Click Format.

5. Name the hard drive.

6. Select exFAT (or FAT for FAT32).

7. Click OK.

Naming and Labelling Hard Drives

If you will be using multiple external hard drives on a project, you’ll want to make sure to keep them organized. This includes the way you name the drive and how you label it.

One of my personal tricks is naming all drives after an actor. For instance, one project had several external drives, all of which were named after different Will Ferrell characters — Mugatu, Megamind, Lord Business, and Ron Burgundy. Another project used Tom Hanks characters — Forrest and Woody.

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Remember that external drives should be used temporarily — and all footage should be backed up elsewhere. Use checksum verification to make sure everything is copied correctly.

There are plenty of ways you can label your drives. You can simply use some masking tape or gaff tape, and then write the name of the drive. You can also use hard drive labels, which are the awesome stickers featured above. You easily put them on your external drive to keep track of them.

If you are a parent, like myself, you can also use any stickers you have lying around the house. I recently had Kermit the Frog and Optimus Prime hard drives.

No matter how you label your hard drives, just make sure you keep track of them. You never know when you will need that footage from a three-year-old project.

Got any hard drive organizational tips to share with the community? Let us know in the comments below!