Open up your my computer or computer in vista from the start menu and look for the drive that has a removable disk icon. All data on the drive will be lost after formatting. Find my computer in the start menu or by typing it in the search bar. Connect the drive to a pcmac computer through the usb connector. But dont worry, this page talks about the reasons for this issue, and how to fix usb flash drive not mounting on mac without data loss even if external hard drive is not showing up on mac. How do i reformat a mac hd to ntfs for use with windows 8. The reason i prefer to use exfat instead of ntfs is that exfat is read and write compatible with both windows and mac os you cant write to ntfs on a mac. Apr 30, 2020 to format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. Offline xbox update worked like a charm via usb stick. The 64gb and higher capacity drive can be formatted as exfat.
However, if the usb flash drive is not mounted on mac, you will lose access to the usb flash drive as well as to the data stored on it. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 on mac os xmacos easeus. Rightclick on the device you wish to format and select format. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods.
If the drive comes formatted in ntfs, which is the default file system for windows, youre going to want to reformat the drive because mac os x. If you happen tove simply purchased your self a shiny new exterior drive and mightt get it to work in your mac, its attainable that the drive isnt suitable with macos. This is usually assigned to the last drive letter and may show multiple drives if multiple devices are plugged in. Linux users may use the datalocker without reformatting if they they have an ntfs driver installed. Many computer users who use a removable flash drive have the demand for formatting it to the fat32 file system. If you have ever tried to format a usb thumb drive or memory stick, you may have noticed that the only file system options you have are fat and fat32. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdos is the formatting option for pc. Sep 19, 2011 the overwhelming majority of usb flash drives you buy are going to come in one of two formats. When you have a new hard drive, or when youre reinstalling windows, the os may ask you to format the drive.
You can view all available volumes in the computer folder under hard disk drives. Formatting cruzer glide for windows and mac sandisk forums. But if it is ntfs, format your flash drive to make it completely compatible with macos. But dont worry, this page talks about the reasons for this issue, and how to fix usb flash drive not mounting on mac without data loss. I click on the format disk button, a window is displayed indicating the capacity of the drive at 200mb. Use the exfat file system and never format your external. But to get a hard drive to be compatible with both mac and pc, you have to choose the exfat.
How to format a usb flash drive on windows 10 windows central. Well show you how using tuxera ntfs for mac and tuxera disk manager. I mounted the usb drive on mac, ran diskutililty and erased using msdos. How to format drives in ntfs on a macin 3 easy steps tuxera.
If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. Step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. If the drive is called no name, directly above that, you should see. You must use the existing name of the volume or the conversion will be canceled. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. When you here just relax and wait until the process is over before you remove the drive. Typically, reformatting involves changing the ntfs or exfat format to macos extended format or apfs format as they are more compatible with apple systems. How do i format a usb flash drive to ntfs file system. When reformatting process is over your drive will befat32 and you can now use it. Bonus tip data recovery from formatted hard drive on mac. So the first step you must do is move all of your important data to your pcmac, or to cloud storage service. I needed to perform an offline system update for xbox one s but i only have macs. In the screenshot below, the drive is formatted with the exfat file system.
Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. But to get a hard drive to be compatible with both mac and pc. Select the capacity of the drive respective to the one containing the device you wish to format then click the erase tab. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. In the format options that will popup, select ntfs to convert your drive to ntfs. As of early 2011, macs do not have a native ability to format volumes using ntfs. Now here is how to format your fat32 external drive on mac.
Instead, well just be wiping the drive and starting over from scratch. Rightclick or controlclick the drives icon in the finders sidebar or on your desktop and select get info. Open the device manager and find your usb drive under the disk drives heading. Format ntfs drive on mac the second task is how to format ntfs drive on mac. For most reasons to erase, including when reformatting a disk or selling, giving away, or trading in your mac, you should erase your entire disk. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods revealed. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Format usb drive to ntfs in windows 10 all 4 ways easeus. Youll see the drives file system displayed to the right of format under the general heading. You can then rightclick in the empty space and select new simple volume to create a partition and format it with the windows ntfs or fat32 file systems. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility. To enable ntfs on your usb flash drive drive usb flash memory click on my computer this pc and select manage.
How to format a usb flash drive to ntfs file system. Compare with the other commonly used ntfs file system on a flash drive, fat32 has a compatibility advantage across many operating systems. Fat32 works for both oses, but has a 4gb size limit per file, so it isnt ideal. You can mitigate that by formatting the drive for mac. Tried 4 times, each time it came back mac os extended journaled. Format usb flash drive to ntfs using command prompt with using command prompt, make sure to type in the exact commands to avoid unexpected errors. Here are three proven methods on how to format usb flash drive to ntfs. How to format a flash drive to work on os x and windows. This process wont actually convert the file system. Under the devices and drivers section, rightclick the flash drive and select the format option.
However, you can format the drive to work with both windows and mac by. Need to use a usb drive on both a windows pc and a mac. On the left side of the window are the drives connected to the computer. Mar 03, 2020 because the process of reformatting a disk drive will very likely erase all content and make recovery impossible. If your flash drives file system is msdos or exfat you can use it as it is without further formatting.
If given a choice, the two common modes are ntfs and fat32. That allowed me to format a usb drive as ntfs with full readwrite access and then write the system update files to the usb drive. Dec 25, 2016 macs can only read but not write to a ntfs file system. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it.
In case the usb flash drive is formatted with the ntfs file system which isnt compatible with macos. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. First, back up the data on the macformatted drive if you have anything important on it. Aug 16, 2019 under the devices and drivers section, rightclick the flash drive and select the format option. Dec 17, 2018 if your flash drives file system is msdos or exfat you can use it as it is without further formatting. If youve just bought yourself a shiny new external drive and cant get it to work on your mac, its possible that the drive isnt compatible with macos. Besides using this particular usb flash drive as a windows 10 installation disk, i also use it to transfer files from home pcs into workplace macs which i cant do with an ntfs drive. In device manager, look for your usb drive in disk drives tab. Read this usb drive data recovery guide for more information. In order to write or format ntfs, you need a third party app. If the drive is called no name, directly above that, you should see the drive capacity of xxxx. How to format a disk to ntfs using mac os x ask different. Jul 05, 2017 rightclick or controlclick the drives icon in the finders sidebar or on your desktop and select get info.
How to format usb flash drive to fat32 on mac os xmacos. Type the name of the volume you want to convert, and then press enter. So if you want your external hard drive to be backward compatible with both oss then you need to reformat it with fat32 or exfat. Learn how to set up or format a usb drive to the ntfs file system using your mac. Jan 15, 2019 its exactly the same procedure if you need to reformat a flash drive on a mac. The native mac hfs format is also supported, choose this file system if you will only be using the datalocker on a mac system. Go finder window on you mac then click on applications the image right. Reformatting hdd when i bought my lacie drive it came with its own format utility for mac and pc formats. If the usb port or cable of the computer is not working properly, your mac computer wont recognize or read the flash drive. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Fat32 works for both oses, but has a 4gb size limit per file, so it. How to format a flash drive to ntfs on a mac quora. May 01, 2020 how to erase a disk for mac use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. Mar 16, 2020 you must have come across forums where people ask how to format ntfs on mac.
Disk utility application in macos is the best option to format a flash drive on macos. If you only use a mac computer, you can format your thumb drive so it can. If you were using boot camp, i would advise leaving it formatted as ntfs and purchasing ntfs for mac to access the drive on both oss. In the screenshot below, the drive is formatted with. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. First of all, as i said before, reformating will erase all your data that stored on the hard drive permanently. You can insert the usb drive to a windows computer including windows xp, vista, 7, 8, 10 to perform a quick format so as to change its file system to ntfs. The first format, fat32, is fully compatible with mac os. Reasons for formatting your mac the reasons which lead to formatting the mac hard drive are listed below. If i insert the usb drive on a windows machine, windows indicates that i need to format the drive before i can use it. By default, the setting for formatting your drive is set to quick removal. How to format usb drives to ntfs on a mac with tuxera disk.
How to repairfix unreadable usb flash drives on mac. Also, since i dont know whether you are on a pc or mac to perform this operation, im here to break down this guide into two parts. Therefore, scroll down until you see a folder utilities double click on it. Macs can only read but not write to a ntfs file system. However not like different electronics in the marketplace, its attainable to reformat an exterior drive to work with the working systems of your selection. Installed the paragon ntfs for mac using 10 day trial.
How to format toshiba harddrive for mac apple community. Tuxera disk manager makes it super easy for flash drives. In such a case, its necessary to reformat wd hard drive to make it compatible with mac operating system. If you keep your hard drives outofthebox ntfs format for all the reasons fat32 displeases, theres a workaround that will allow. Use the file system dropdown menu and select the ntfs option. If your flash drive s file system is msdos or exfat you can use it as it is without further formatting. Luckily, there are thirdparty tools to help you do so. How to erase a disk for mac use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. Os x can default read ntfs disks, but not write to them. Feb 21, 2020 how to format a usb flash drive with mac to fat32. Format usb flash drive to ntfs using disk management 1. How to change the format of a flash drive to ntfs on a mac.
How to format usb flash drive to ntfs in windows 10. This will reformat your flash drive and it will fix the flash drive not recognized issue. But unlike other electronics on the market, its possible to reformat an external drive to work wi. Incompatibility issues between the file systems of both flash drive and the mac computer. Windows uses ntfs and mac os uses hfs and theyre incompatible with each other. Formatting it for mac lets you use it, as i said, on both the parallels vm and the mac side. How one can reformat an exterior drive for mac techdata. Macs do have some limited support for other file systemsfor example, macs can read files on windowsformatted ntfs volumes, but cant. Microsoft has also developed their file system for windows, ntfs. To format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. Mac os users must reformat the drive with the fat32 format in order to read and write to the drive.
If you have a mac lying around, you can plug the drive into a mac and back up the files. As the default file system in windows, it can only read by mac os, writing to it is not available. Ntfs is built for windows operating system therefore it is not supported by mac. Need to reformat wd hard drive for mac if you connect your wd hard drive without reformatting, youll be unable to copy files to the disk as mac read only supports ntfs file system. Its exactly the same procedure if you need to reformat a flash drive on a mac. Plug the drive into a usb socket if you have a recent macbook or macbook pro that only has usbc connectors, youll need a usbc to usba adaptor. How to reformat an external drive for mac warehouse.
936 1268 1561 919 1143 562 712 1112 1195 696 681 987 1078 725 858 78 868 857 1256 485 1420 763 1102 22 1538 1150 1433 1481 117 265 648 841 231 150 135