Make your mac feel like new again with a fresh install of os x. Equipped with wd backup software for windows and apple time machine compatibility for mac, the my book desktop hard drive can back up your photos, videos, music, and documents. The 8tb version of the western digital my book is a deep well of affordable. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Disk drive format your my book drive is preformatted as a single ntfs partition for compatibility with all updated windows operating systems. I just recently bought my 6tb my book studio edittion ii wd hard drive. Learn how to use macos recovery to reinstall the mac operating system on your builtin drive or an external drive. Mac secret trick how to clone mac hard drive with disk utility hdd sdd macbook pro imac 20102019 duration. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. Format my 6tb my book studio edition ii to fat32 external. So i went to mac os utilities and went to disk and accidentally deleted my 3tb hard drive. Jun 02, 2017 in this video we look at the process of formatting a hard drive, flash drive, or ssd on an apple computer. The best external hard drives for mac in 2020 pcmag. 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.
It will list all the hard drives and devices on your mac computer. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. Then i wanted to get a fresh copy of yosemite and it is asking me to choose a disk, there is no disk to choose. I dont use a mac but with a pc would just hookup to usb and format i think. Or it might be that you bought a drive to use with your mac only to discovered it is preformatted for windows. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. 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. 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.
Password protection the my book drives builtin 256bit aes hardware encryption with wd security tools helps keep your content private and safe. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. If your product is not listed above, please visit the product page. How to erase a disk for mac use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. This is a great thing to do when you first purchase a drive or when you are looking to. When prompted, select the mac os extended journaled format. I do not wish to use a partition as i want to access the hard drive through mac and windows at the same time on my laptop and i also want to be able to access the mac things on a windows computer and vice versa. However, you may encounter a not initialized error when connecting the device to your. If you desire encryption, then select mac os extended journaled, encrypted format instead.
Please remember that all data will be deleted from the drive, so make sure you have made a backup. After youre done, dont forget to remove the external hard. Use disc utility to erase format a hard disc, ssd, flash drive or other. For example, here wed type select disk 2 finally, type clean and press enter. How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. In the format partition section, select the file system. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Disk wont format external drives for mac wd community. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. However when i format it to fat32 using wd drive manager on my mac it only formats about 2tb.
External hard drives use either spinning disks or solid memory to save your files. Click on disk utility then continue first of all to get your macs hard drive wiped. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. Select your startup drive on the left typically macintosh hd, switch to the erase tab and choose mac os. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Erase mac hard drive when you erase a hard drive, you basically format ntfs on mac and change the format to a compatible one like afps or mac os x extended journaled. Its formatted for mac and compatible with apple time machine making backups quick and easy. Sep 17, 2019 right click on your toshiba external hard drive icon and pick get info from the menu. Use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar. I have tried formating the drive with wd drive manager on my mac.
If youre not erasing the disk your mac started up from, you dont need. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Under file system, choose the file system you want to use. If a wireless network is available, you can choose it from the wi. Operation failed dont understand the space issue and since the disk is unmounted ii am unable to do. Using it in the enclosure would be kind of slow with usb 2. If you see the drive is ntfs then youll either need to reformat the drive or use a ntfs driver. How to format toshiba harddrive for mac apple community. Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. Disk utility is a mac application, you can run it on your mac. To format external hard drive on mac, all you have to do is plugin your hard drive and launch disk utility. From the finders sidebar, you should also find your hard drive in the devices section. Feb 11, 2019 mac secret trick how to clone mac hard drive with disk utility hdd sdd macbook pro imac 20102019 duration. 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.
How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them. Nov 14, 2019 it is possible to format a hard drive so it can be read on mac and windows computers, providing you format using exfat. Give the partition a name and select exfat for the format.
I accidentally deleted my mac hard drive and my mac wont. If it is not ticked, you will lose all of your data. I am wanting to format all 6tb to fat32 so i am able to use it on my playstation 3, along with my mac and pc. Verify that the correct hard drive is selected in the left column. Your first step to using your toshiba external drive on your mac is to plug your toshiba drive in. How to reformat western digital portable hard drive. For mac computers, go to the apple menu and select software update. Compare portable, usb and external hard drive models for office and home and shop online.
Select your macs hard drive in the lefthand column, to reveal more options, then select the partition button. Click on disk utility then continue first of all to get your mac s hard drive wiped. Now, i will show you the two methods to format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. How to install macos or os x on a new hard drive for your mac. Right click on your toshiba external hard drive icon and pick get info from the menu. I think it is necessary to reformat the wd portable hard drive and permanently erase my private data. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Mar 31, 2020 if you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between mac and pc is an often difficult but it doesnt need to be. One of just a few options for macformatted external raid arrays, the promise. Even better maybe, remove the drive and use it as a regular drive. Easily format wd my passport portable hard drive on mac.
How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. Although mybook hard drives are capable of working with both macs and pcs, they are initially formatted for use with only the windows. Dec 29, 2015 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. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. How to use toshiba external hard drive on mac solved. If you want to use the drive with a mac computer, see reformatting the drive. By default its the disk built into your mac, named macintosh hd. Select disk utility from the main menu and click on the continue button. All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your mac. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. After du loads select your startup volume usually macintosh hd from the. How to connect external hard drive to macbook pro wikihow. If you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between mac and pc is an often difficult but it doesnt need to be. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another.
Dont click the format disk button or windows will erase the contents of the driveclick cancel. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. I have never formatted a hard drive before, and i would like to use a completely safe software, or no software at all, if it is possible. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Well show you everything you need to know about the.
A hard drive format refers to how the operating system stores the data on the drive. Os x, windows, and linux all use different hard drive formatting for normal system operations. How to reformat an external hard drive without losing your. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Macbook external hard drive not recognized how to reformat.
Is there any fast way to reformat the wd portable hard drive and erase all the data on the hard drive. If you have more than one partition, on the hard drive, you may wish to remove these and return the hard drive to a single partition, first. There are three common filesystems that are used today. Following site procedures for reformatting to mac os extended journaled and erasing the disk using mac disk utility, i received the message unmounting disk mediakit reports not enough space on device for requested operation. Since yesterday my mac will boot and then shut down. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. Discover the world of external hard drives for mac. By default, the 4tb hard drive uses the ntfs format for windows pcs, but theres a help file included on the drive that provides information for mac users so that you can reformat the drive and.
It is possible to format a hard drive so it can be read on mac and windows computers, providing you format using exfat. How to reformat a mybook external hard drive on mac osx. Locate your external drive from the list of devices and drives. Everything you need to know about your macs hard drive. That said, if you are using smaller file sizes fat32 can suffice. Be sure to doublecheck this you could accidentally wipe the wrong drive if you select the wrong disk here. If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. First, lets see how to format an external hard drive or usb drive in macos which works with both mac and pc platforms, first plugin your drive in macos machine. How to reinstall macos from macos recovery apple support. Mac os x installation basics sata drive seagate support us. Wait as the os x utilities window appears on the screen. Use the disk utility application to erase the drive. Yet when you connect a macformatted drive to windows, youll be informed that you need to format the disk in drive x.
This command erases the entire selected disk, including all its files and partitions whether. Jan 15, 2020 learn how to use macos recovery to reinstall the mac operating system on your builtin drive or an external drive. My book studio desktop hard drive features blazingfast superspeed usb 3. How do i use disk utility to reformat my hard drive. However, if youre having problems accessing the files and the issue is due to formatting, you will need to connect it to a device it can be read on, and then format the files correctly for the computer you are going to use. The maximum individual file size for exfat is 16 eb. In this video we look at the process of formatting a hard drive, flash drive, or ssd on an apple computer.
1169 575 963 6 261 813 1082 1031 336 328 141 864 1305 1073 600 222 165 1517 1244 1220 68 407 1173 1065 750 1017 1308