Best Disk Format For Windows And Mac
When you connect a Mac-formatted drive to Windows, you’ll be informed that “you need to format the disk in drive X: before you can use it.” Don’t click the “Format disk” button or Windows will erase the contents of the drive–click “Cancel”! The instructions below are for Windows 10, but other versions of Windows from Windows 7 and up can also format an external drive as exFAT for use with Mac as well. Connect the drive to your. Another easy way to format a drive to use ExFAT is by using Windows' built-in Disk Management. For instructions on how to do this, please see the instructions below: Right-click on Start, the Windows logo on the bottom-left of the screen, and click Disk Management. In the Disk Management window, the lower pane will display a list of available drives. Identify the drive that needs to be partitioned and formatted, and make sure that all critical data on this drive has been backed up elsewhere. To share a USB drive between a Mac and a Windows PC, there are two disk formats to choose from: exFAT and FAT32. The other formats -- Microsoft's NTFS and Apple's Mac OS Extended -- don't work well on the other operating system. Here's how to format a drive if you are planning to use it with a Mac. Launch Disk Utility. Either head to Applications > Utilities, or tap Command + Space and start typing Disk Utility. The best ways to format an external drive for Windows and Mac Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with Windows and Mac. And, no: the answer isn't always FAT32. The disk can be formatted with windows, or with ntfsprogs on a mac. (filesystem operations always envolve risk, and very likely lots of command-line work.) NTFS is the native windows filesystem. It's open-source drivers work quite stably and reliably. NTFS will work like a charm if you'll ever need linux support.
Best external hard drive for mac time machine. Tried resetting the PRAM and SMC on the MAC? — Heartwood Institute (@Heartwood9) For issues relating to USB devices, resetting the SMC will provide the best chance of a fix. Even disk first aid or whatever the hell they call it now on the external drives?
Jonathan sent us an e-mail saying:
'I own a SimpleTech 320GB Black Cherry Hard Drive and needed it to run on both Mac and PC for school. I thought it would be pretty helpful if you made a video showing how to format a disc to run on all OS's using Mac OS X.'
First, Here's why there's a difference. All data has to be put in a file format that the operating system can read off the hard drive. OS X uses a file format called HFS+ to write its data. Windows can't read or write HFS+ data natively. However, OS X and Windows both can read and write to a format called FAT32, which used to be used for Windows all the way back into the MS-DOS days. Most modern Windows systems use the NTFS file format, which OS X can read, but not write to.
So your best bet for compatibility is FAT32. Here's how to format a drive as FAT32. First, the Windows way and then the Mac way.
Windows way
Plug in your external drive to the Windows machine. Go to My Computer and right-click on the correct drive letter. Make sure you are choosing the right drive! You're about to erase all data on the drive you choose.
Best audiobook player for mac. Select format and choose format.
Under file system choose FAT 32.
Then press Start.
Pres OK to affirm you really want to destroy the data on this hard drive.
And sit and wait while it formats.
Mac way
For OS X, connect your drive.
Launch Disk Utility. I usually just press Command-Space and type 'disk utility' into Spotlight to find it.
Click on the drive you just connected. Again MAKE SURE you click on the right one.
Then Choose Erase. Remember, you are destroying every last shred of data on this USB drive.
Under Volume format, choose MS-DOS (FAT) That's FAT32. And then press erase.
And press erase again to confirm that you REALLY want to erase it.
Now here's the issue with FAT32. You cannot create a file larger than 4GB. If you're mainly working with Web pages or audio, that's fine. But if you're doing large video files, it's not going to work.
NTFS can handle files larger than 4GB, and OS X can read to it, it just can't write to it. There is way around that by using the free MacFUSE to help OS X to write to NTFS. See my video called Read and Write NTFS in OS X for more info on that.
You can also buy a program called MacDrive that lets Windows computers read MAC-formatted HFS+ drives.
Best Disk Format For Windows And Mac
This how-to shows you the steps using Disk Utility 13 in OS X 10.10 Yosemite, but the process is the same if you’re using OS X 10.9 Mavericks or 10.8 Mountain Lion. Here are the instructions using OS X 10.11 El Capitan.
Sometimes you want to wipe out all the data that’s on a hard drive or solid-state drive—erase it and start over. The best way to do this is to format the drive, which both erases the drive and prepares it for storing data by mapping out bad sectors, creating address tables for locating the data on the disk, and more.
Best Disk Format For Windows And Mac
Similarly, you may have purchased a new drive that was formatted for Windows out of the box. You'll want to reformat that drive for your Mac.
Best Disk Format For Mac Os
But formatting a drive so that it can be used as your Mac’s startup drive requires a slightly different procedure than formatting it for use as a secondary drive for storing data.