- Drive Format Utility
- Disk Format Tools
- Format Software Windows
- Format Disk Windows 10
- Windows Hard Drive Format Utility
An external hard drive that supports both Windows and Mac operating systems can be extremely helpful to users who work on both the operating systems. However, Windows was mainly optimized for NTFS (New Technology file system) format, on the other hand, APFS was created for the Mac OS.
As we all know NTFS is not compatible with Mac and similarly APFS does not get along with Windows. Fortunately, you could create an external hard disk which is compatible with both Windows and Mac OS with the help of this article. This does not require any third-party application or assistance of any additional software. Let’s get down to make the external hard drive compatible with Mac and Windows.
How to create an external hard disk compatible on Mac and Windows?
Lets us first understand how to make the external hard drive compatible with Mac and Windows? using exFAT and Dual formatting? Toolkit all in one 2018 apk.
Format external hard drive with Windows built-in tool. Connect your external hard drive to your Windows 10 PC. Open the Disk Management tool by right-clicking This PC - Manage - Disk Management. In Disk Management, you’ll see your external hard drive as partition or unallocated space. Open Disk Utility. In general, you can just open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder of your Applications folder. However, if your Mac doesn't start up all the way, or you want to repair the disk your Mac starts up from, open Disk Utility from macOS Recovery: Apple silicon: Turn on your Mac and continue to press and hold the power button.
- exFAT – Formatting a hard drive with the exFAT file system. Since exFAT formatted external hard disk are readable and writable by both the operating systems
- Dual formatting – If you are a user who prefers to have both APFS and NTFS file system on a single external hard disk, you can partition and dual format the hard drive.
How to format an external drive on macOS with exFAT
- Connect the drive to the Mac.
- Open Disk Utility. The easiest way to do that is to hit CMD and the spacebar at the same time and type in Disk Utility to find the program.
- In disk utility, you will have an internal and external drive
- Select the drive you want to format and click erase.
- Give the partition a name and select exFAT for the format.
- Click Erase to finish and you will complete the procedure.
How to format an external drive on Windows with exFAT
- Connect the drive to your Windows PC.
- Open the Disk Management tool. You can do that by typing 'disk format' or 'disk management' in Windows search or going to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Create and format hard disk partitions.
- Right-click on the external drive's partition or unallocated space you want to format and choose New Simple Volume
- Follow the wizard to choose a volume size.
- Assign a drive letter.
- Choose exFAT as the file system in the Format Partition screen.
- Give the volume a new name, click next and finish to complete the procedure.
Note - Your exFAT-formatted drive or partition can now be used for both Windows and Mac. Keep in mind that using a drive frequently between Windows and Mac could increase the chances of hard disk corruption, so make sure you have a backup of the data any drive. In case if you happened to lose you will need a reliable third party application to fix the issue.
How to Dual Format an external hard disk?
Let us understand how to make the external hard drive compatible with Mac and Windows using dual formatting?
If the user desires to use NTFS, APFS or HFS+ for any specific reasons and does not want to opt for exFAT, there is another option. Instead of formatting a drive with a single file system, the user can create two partitions and format those with NTFS, APFS, HFS+ or any other file systems.
How to partition external hard disk on Mac?
- Connect the external hard disk to the Mac.
- Click on Disk utility. Select the drive from the left sidebar, then click the Partition tab.
- Under Partition layout, select '2 Partitions.'
- The user can adjust the size of the partition based on the desired requirement.
- Once adjusting based on the desired storage requirement, the user will able to choose the preferred operating system (NTFS or APFS) and complete the procedure.
![Tools Tools](https://help.apple.com/assets/5FCE6A030946226D305E5797/5FCE6A0C0946226D305E579F/en_US/8ed7260182b24b9486e17672342dccb5.png)
How to partition external hard disk on Windows?
- Plug the external hard drive into your Windows PC.
- Open the Start menu and search for Disk Management.
- Select the search result and the Disk Management utility will launch. In the left sidebar, you should see your hard drive and its partitions
- Select the drive which you want to be made into a partition. Right-click the Windows partition and select Shrink partition.
- In the Format dialog box, under File System, select the desired file system (NTFS). Click OK and complete the format process.
The chances of losing data in this scenario are comparatively high if anything goes wrong in formatting. It is recommended to have a backup of your data before performing this action. If you don’t have a backup you will need a professional hard drive recovery software to recover your lost or formatted data.
Remo hard drive recovery software is one such professional hard drive recovery tool that can easily help you to recover data from your lost or formatted hard disk. The tool supports more than 300 file formats with which you can be sure of recovering files of any format. The tool comes with two types of scan features, Normal scan, and Deep Scan which scans the hard drive sector by sector which ensures hassle-free data recovery.
FAQ
1. What is Hard format and Quick Format? Is data recovery possible in these scenarios?
- Hard format - A hard format is an option in Windows, which allows the user to format the whole disk/partition. The disadvantages of this feature are that the data residing on this disk is permanently lost and cannot be recovered
- Quick Format - Quick format is a feature in which the Windows allows the user to format the disk or partition. Know more on how to perform quick format and recover data after quick format here.
2. How can I use NTFS on Mac?
A. Yes, you can use NTFS on Mac only in read-only mode and it cannot write or overwrite any of these files.
3. How can I use APFS on Windows?
A. Windows is capable of understanding the file format and can read the APFS, but cannot write or overwrite any of these files.
3. How can I use APFS on Windows?
A. Windows is capable of understanding the file format and can read the APFS, but cannot write or overwrite any of these files.
You might need to format USB drive (Pendrive or Thumb drive) for numerous reasons, say if you want to delete all files completely including hidden files to free up space, to repair a corrupted USB drive or some other reasons. But on Mac, users face a peculiar situation where USB drive is not recognized by the Apple’s OS. This article is all about How to Format USB Drive on Mac.
There is no denying the fact that Windows dominates the world of Operating System in numbers of users. Both Mac and Windows use different file systems in their computer, that is why USB drive for Windows, in most cases doesn’t support on Mac. Detailed information on the file system used in Mac is covered under the section ‘file system which one to choose’.
Contents
- 1 Before Formatting USB Drive, Do this!
- 2 How to Format USB Drive on Mac
Before Formatting USB Drive, Do this!
Before you proceed to format USB drive on Mac, you must BACKUP data first. Formatting the USB drive will delete all the files. This article is also applicable for other external storage devices like External Hard disk, thus resolving storage device not recognizing on Mac by changing its format. To check information related to File system, remaining space, etc of USB drive follow these steps:
1. Right-click on the USB drive icon on the desktop, if not available, Open a ” Finder” window, then right-click on USB drive located on the sidebar.
2. A menu will appear, click on “Get Info”. Then, a pop up will appear showing details about the USB drive.
You might also need Internet Connection if you wish to download 3rd party application recommended by us. In the next section, we will discuss file system in detail, you may skip this section and directly jump to the next one for easy steps to format USB drive.
File system- Which one to choose?
The file system is the way of storing, organizing and accessing data (files) in storage devices such as a Hard disk, USB devices, etc. Mac has its own set of file system and so does Windows. By default, Mac uses HFS+ also known as OS X Extended, this file system is native to Mac and is unsupported in Windows. Currently, windows use NTFS ( New Technology File System) which is partially supported by Mac ( mostly Read-only operations).
This issue can be resolved by choosing to format your storage device in either in FAT32 or exFAT file system as both of these filesystems are supported by both Mac and Windows. The FAT32 filesystem is relatively old and has some limitation on the maximum size of a file can be only 4GB or less and partition size cannot exceed more than 8GB. Whereas, exFAT is comparatively new, also is the most preferred file system. file system. In exFAT. there is no limitation on maximum file size( very high) and also for maximum partition size of the storage device. Therefore, we would request you to use modern filesystem exFAT as it supported in many platforms.
Other filesystems supported by Mac are:
- OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled): Similar to Unix operating system, a Filesystem with case-sensitive name, eg: Document and document are two different files.
- OS X Extended (Journaled, Encrypted): A file system in which content will be encrypted, you will have to enter the password to access files.
- OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted): This filesystem is an amalgamation of above two cases i.e. both encryption and case sensitive.
These filesystems are exclusive to Mac and are not supported by Windows. Recommend partition scheme is GPT (GUID Partition Map) as it is supported by both Mac and Windows.
Drive Format Utility
How to Format USB Drive on Mac
Now, lets us see how to format USB port in Mac:
Disk Utility
Disk Format Tools
Mac provides you with a utility tool to format storage devices like USB drive, called Disk Utility. You could format a drive with a changed file system and partition scheme using Disk Utility.
1. Open “Finder”. Select “Application” located in the sidebar then click on “Utilities” and finally, click on “Disk Utilities”. Alternatively, Press Command + Space and search for “Disk Utilities” and press Enter to open Disk Utilities.
2. On the left sidebar, all the storage devices will be listed. In the “External” section look for your USB drive. Click on the USB drive to select it. Information related to USB drive will appear. Now, select “Erase” located on the top.
3. A pop up will appear. You can change Name, Format (File System), Scheme (Partition) in here. Change Format to “exFAT”, Scheme to “GUID Partition Map” and Name the USB drive as you pleased ( there is naming convention and characters limit). You could also leave the fields unchanged if you satisfied. Finally, click on “Erase” to format the USB drive.
*** Remember to backup your USB drive prior to formatting it, otherwise you will lose all the data stored in it. ***
Cleanmydrive3
Format Software Windows
Cleanmydrive 3 is the highest rated most popular 3rd party application for managing both Internal as well as External storage devices. It is available in both paid and free variants. It has a very simple easy to use interface for formatting USB drive. Also, you can find hidden files, junk files (free up space in Mac) and is loaded with many other features.
Format Disk Windows 10
Conclusion
Hopefully, your USB drive must be formatted by now. Follow the steps in the same order as mentioned above to avoid any confusion. Once again don’t forget to backup your files before formatting the USB drive.
You could also use the same steps to format other storage devices. If your storage device ( USB drive is Windows compatible only and is not showing (recognizing) in Mac, backup your data in Windows first. Also, you can format the USB drive using Windows in exFAT format easily.
Always safely remove USB drive after use or else your data can get corrupted. Bookmark us for more awesome content on Mac!