So if you are formatting a drive that has already been used, be sure to copy any files you will ever want to see again onto a computer or backup drive. You can find them in this article on how to connect an external hard drive to your mac. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. How to format seagate drive for mac and pc quickly and. Hi, not sure if this is possible but i cannot find a post above on how to actually remove what is already on the seagate external hard drive windows then reformat it to a mac. There are a few reasons to reformat your drive this way. Next, it is time formatting the xbox one external hard drive. How to fix seagate external hard drive readonly on mac.
How to format a windows disk drive for a mac seagate blog. Formatting a hard drive for windows will be discussed in another article. However, it just wont recognize it, even though the hard drive is showing up on your computer. In a few simple steps you are ready to go and can save your backup files to the external drive, keeping your information safe and giving you peace of mind. How to format seagate drive for mac and pc quickly and securely. As an external hard drive icon with the name you gave it. This wikihow teaches you how to format a seagate hard drive on a mac computer. Well show you everything you need to know about the. How to reformat my external hard drive for windows 10. How to format seagate external hard drive under mac os. For instructions on how to format your hard drive on a mac, please reference the following links. Computer management on a pc cant reformat a mac formatted drive. But a problem arises when you have a portable seagate hard drive and would like to use it with both mac and windows computers.
How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. There some easytouse utilities can help you format a seagate hard drive under mac os. The reason is perhaps that seagate external hard drive has been well known for a long time as one of the most reliable drives for storing data. I cant reformat the seagate freeagent drive go, because i have important. Formatting takes a little longer on a larger seagate backup plus drive. Do you know the solution to reformat a seagate hard drive for mac. Also, if your current hard drive is more than 5 years old, it probably is nearing the end of its service life and needs to be replaced. As long as the drive connects to your macbook air via a connection protocol that the air supports like thunderbolt or usb 2 or usb 3 you can format the drive and use it with your mac just fine. If you do not see the scheme option, then you have selected the volume and not the drive. This process wont actually convert the file system. How to reformat a seagate external hard drive for both. How to fix seagate backup plus not mountingworking on mac. Use the wizard to create a partition with the ntfs or fat32 file system. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive.
Click on the view button in the upper lefthand side, change to show all devices. You can get to know how to reformat wd hard drive for mac and pc from this post, if you need to use a western digital external hard drive, like wd elements both under mac and pc. Therfore, you can connect backup plus desktop to a windows pc without formatting the hard drive. First, connect the seagate external hard drive with your mac. If you dont see two entries for the hard drive itself and the volume or partition, click view in the upperright corner and select show all devices. A lot of people including you, storing important data on seagate external hard drive instead of on your pc mac hard drive. Step 2 on the left side of the utilities screen, find the name of the external hard drive you want to format and select it. You can format a drive using the disk utility in mac. How to reformat an external hard drive without losing your. This is where mac reformat external hard drive might help just like the human body, your computer can have sand in its machinery throughout its running course and end up crashing everything. I purchased an external hard drive a seagate 2 tb expansion desktop drive and was told by the mac rep in the store to perform the following simple task to reformat the disk so i could drag and drop files from my imac and store them on the external hard drive. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. Before formatting any hard drive, its a good idea to backup any data or files you want to save before.
It is obviously that you can use seagate external hard drive or flash drive with mac and windows computer as long as you format seagate drive for mac and pc. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. How to format an external hard drive for mac youtube. How to format an external hard drive for xbox one minitool. When disk utility is finished you can get rid of your disk utility window. In this guide i will show you how you can properly format reformat a hard drive for mac os.
There will be no space wasted by protected mac partitions. Here, we will introduce you to how to format hard drive in windows 10 with windows builtin disk management tool, a partition manager, and command lines. How to format your hard drive seagate support asean. You may wonder how to reformat an external hard drive on mac. Instead, well just be wiping the drive and starting over from scratch. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. But what happens if that drive becomes corrupted, and you have to reformat it to make it accessible again. Here are the steps to create a back up of your seagate hard drive s data with mac s time machine before you reformat seagate drive. Follow the tutorial below, youll get everything covered. Your exfatformatted drive or partition can now be used for both windows and mac. But to get a hard drive to be compatible for both mac and pc, you have to choose the exfat. How to properly format reformat a hard drive for mac os. Nov 11, 2019 mac and windows computers have their unique interface, which attracts users with different tastes.
How to use seagate external hard drive on mac, 16 ways. Yo just got a new external hard drive and want to use it on your mac. In such a case, its necessary to reformat wd hard drive to make it compatible with mac operating system. Oct 25, 2018 when your seagate drive is formatted as exfat or fat32 successfully, you can type exit to close this window. First, back up the data on the macformatted drive if you have anything important on it. Is there any way i can reformat the hd to work on my pc without losing the movie. When your seagate drive is formatted as exfat or fat32 successfully, you can type exit to close this window. Takes its juice, its power from your mac, along its usb cable and that means youll need enough battery power in your macbook pro or air to drive the seagate drive.
Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. And will send over your files at the speed your seagate expansion can take. Moving files from macformatted external hard drive to pc. But unfortunately it bit the dust and i decided to get a pc. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the formatting option for pc. To format external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below.
Mar 12, 2018 want to format a hard drive for mac and pc compatibility. When youre planning to use your seagate drive only for your mac. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the. Hard drives in seagate s freeagent line except for the go pro for mac and the go for mac ship with ntfs, a file system designed for windows. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Your mac works out how fast your seagate drive can go.
The drive will now be formatted for use by windows systems. If you have a mac lying around, you can plug the drive into a mac and back up the files. Make sure the storage device is connected to and mounted on the computer. For some reason i lost half of my space on this hard drive once i formatted it. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods revealed. Two methods to change seagate external hard drives from readonly back to readwrite, so that you can edit, delete, and rename files on this seagate external hard drive. I am going to sell my 2tb seagate external hard drive. 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. Note that using a drive frequently between windows and mac could increase the chances of file corruption, so make. Your backup plus desktop is formatted as ntfs for compatibility with windows out of the box. The products claims it works only with pc windows, however, i have read multiple places that i can just format the drive and it will work fine with a mac. It is obviously that you can use seagate external hard drive or flash drive with mac and windows computer as long as you format seagate drive for mac.
Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. This video shows, how to format seagate backup plus external hard disk. A hard drive or hard disk can be used in any type of computer, whether for pc windows or for mac. Step 1 connect the external hard drive you want to format to your mac, then start the disk utility app that you can find under applications utilities. Do you save backups of your hard drive onto an external hard drive.
In the lefthand column of the disk utility app, click the seagate drive to select it. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. If you are willing to reformat your seagate external hard drive then you should have decided to which file system you want to format your hard drive in. 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. Reformatting the drive will erase all data on the drive, so you should copy any data you want off the drive prior to formatting. Go to system preferences and click on time machine. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. To save games and apps, you need to do this formatting on xbox one itself because the xbox one external hard drive format type is a proprietary one. If you are willing to reformat it for windows pc then fat32 or ntfs should be used where as fo. The simple and easy steps to formatting your seagate drive on your mac 1.
Now, im trying to format it so that i can use it on pc instead of mac. How to re format a seagate external hard drive for both mac and a pc. Before sending it away, i want to make sure all the data on it has been permanently erased. Seagate expansion on mac, want it but can i use on my mac. Simply put, your ps4 isnt recognizing the file system of your drive, which is most probably ntfs. Now ntfs works fine with computers and is the standard file system, but for some reasons, developers decided that the ps4 wont support this file system. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing. How to reformat my seagate external hard drive quora. 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. All connected storage devices, partitions or disk images are displayed in the left column. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. For instructions on how to format a dr ive in mac os 10.
I can find it under device manager and disk management but thats it. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. If you want a more detailed explanation of the different usb ports on mac with images. Tutorial to fix seagate external hard drive readonly on mac, to change external drives from readonly on mac, and to read, write to, edit, copy, transfer files on seagate external hard drive on macos catalinamojavehigh sierra and mac os x. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Perhaps its in dire need of releasing some data to an external backup drive. If you want to transfer files from a mac to windows pc and vice versa using an external portable hard drive then you have to have the external drive formatted in a file system both oss can read. Lets take a look at the different types of formats, and which are best for video production.
Before formatting any hard drive, its a good idea to backup any data or files you want to save before formatting. How to format a seagate freeagent for a macbook synonym. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Easy steps to reformat seagate external hard drive. You have to set it up correctly before getting starting. Connect your seagate external hard drive into your pc or mac. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods.
Also, if a seagate external hard drive is readonly or files are locked on mac due to ntfs format, you can use iboysoft ntfs for mac to mount it in readwrite mode on mac. Disk utility in macos high sierra or later can erase most disks and volumes for mac using either the newer apfs apple file system format or the older mac os extended format, and it automatically chooses a compatible format for you. Any hard drive can be formatted for mac and here is how you do it. After that, it is impossible to read the game files on windows mac pc. First of all, as i said before, reformating will erase all your data that stored on the hard drive permanently. If you work solely on a mac, but need to send files to someone working on a pc, your external hard drive needs to be set up for both operating systems. First of all, as i said before, reformating will erase all your data. Ive had trouble with seagate drives failing in the past however its possible thats whats happened to your drive too. To format an external hard drive on your mac paraphrased from here. Before you can use it though, you need to properly format or reformat a hard drive so that it will become compatible or readable with the operating system that you are using. Fix seagate external hard drive not detectedrecognized error.
I have an external hard drive which is formatted for mac and has been loaded with movies stored on a mac computer. I am looking to purchase a seagate external hard drive for my macbook air. As formatting will delete all the data on the hard drive, make sure that you have successfully backed up your files to another safe place before windows 10 disk format. Sep 17, 2015 i have a lacie d2 quadra 1tb external hard drive. And in a few moments your mac will show your seagate external hard drive on your macs desktop. How to fix seagate external hard drive not showing. Simply put, your ps4 isnt recognizing the file system of your drive, which is most probably. A hard drive can be used on any type of computer pc or mac. But in order for the computer and drive to talk to one another, the drive has to be formatted. In the pane on the left, under storage, click disk management. Oct 06, 2019 in a few moments the formatting of your seagate external hard drive on your mac will be all done. The next step is downloading the software aweeraser. How to format seagate backup plus and backup plus slim. How to reformat seagate portable external hard drive.
Your seagate external hard drive unless its one of seagate s desktop drives. How to reformat mac external harddrive for pc march 2014. Seagate branded external drives come preformatted, some for pcs, some for macs, and some of them have special utilities allowing them to work between both without formatting. Its a good idea to backup your data for your mac using time machine. However, ntfs is not fully compatible with mac computers. Oct 09, 2019 this wikihow teaches you how to format a seagate hard drive on a mac computer. Now either because of time, corruption or because it may have been formatted for a mac when i plug it into my pc i cant access it. However, the mac os does not allow you to write data to the drive. Just follow these steps to easily format a seagate hard drive on your mac. Reformatting an external hard drive for use with mac osx is not as difficult as it might seem.
1608 982 1438 430 1640 690 1348 1327 1515 951 1329 1598 1018 1521 1618 1597 1226 1168 1509 990 1094 883 1012 372 213 909 1329 749 1130 775 1281 237 1337 1115 1392 542 1490 1086 1042 940 756 208 1376 465 770 1081