
- HOW TO FORMAT A EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR BOTH MAC AND PC HOW TO
- HOW TO FORMAT A EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR BOTH MAC AND PC PC
- HOW TO FORMAT A EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR BOTH MAC AND PC MAC
HOW TO FORMAT A EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR BOTH MAC AND PC MAC
If you’re thinking of moving to Mac but are unsure about the process or concerned with these kinds of issues, check out our Moving to Mac Guide. Of course, there are other options for transferring files between hard drives cloud-based solutions like Dropbox are convenient and don’t have compatibility issues, although are sometimes limited in space.
HOW TO FORMAT A EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR BOTH MAC AND PC PC
That said, for a daily exchange of files (for example, if you work on a PC but you have a Mac at home), it’s a practical and effective solution.
HOW TO FORMAT A EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR BOTH MAC AND PC HOW TO
It doesn’t let you set access permissions to files, so it’s potentially less secure than the NTFS format (the native OS X format). Need to use an external hard drive on both Mac and Windows Here provides you a way for how to format external hard drive for Mac and Windows compatible.It doesn’t support files larger than 4 GB.There are, however, some things you should know about the FAT32 format:

What problems could I have on an HD formatted in FAT32?įAT32 is the only format that both OS X and Windows can read and write without the use of third-party apps. *Warning: this will delete all data on the disk. If there are documents on there that you want to keep, make a copy of the files on your Mac or on another external drive first.*Īnd you’re done! Now, the disk can be read and written using both Mac and Windows computers. Open the Erase tab. From the Format drop-down menu, choose MS-DOS (FAT), better known as FAT32.Īfter you choose the format, you’ll see a box to enter the name of the disk. Choose any name with a maximum of 11 characters (don’t worry, it can be changed later).Ĭlick on Erase and confirm the operation in the next pop-up window. Connect the disk and open Disk UtilityĬonnect the hard drive or USB drive to your Mac and then open the Disk Utility app, which is located in Applications> Utilities> Disk Utility. You can also open the app from Launchpad.Ĭhoose the disk that you want to format for both Mac and PC from the column on the left.

Alternatively, you can also access it from the Control Panel. To do this, just click on the Start menu and look for 'disk management'. First, you need to access the Disk Management tool on your Windows. Luckily, with OS X, you can create a disk that can be used by both operating systems in a snap. Here’s how. Here's how to format hard drive on your Windows PC.
