How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Heres how to format a drive using a mac including how to format a drive for. Once you have done this, you have successfully backed up all of your data, we also highly recommend you manually pass on all the important files you have on your computer to the cloud or an external hard drive. Remove the ten screws using the phillips screwdriver make sure that. Heres how to format a drive using a mac including how to format a drive for windows and mac so the contents can be read on both platforms, and what format to use for time machine. Opening disk management can be done a number of ways depending on your version of windows, but the easiest method is to type diskmgmt. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. If it does not you will need to rightclick and delete the volume first.
To do that, you want to start with your computer upside down on a solid, staticfree surface. Nov 29, 2015 when this happens, a time machine backup can save your data. 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. Formatting the drive will permanently erase all the data and files stored on the hard drive forever. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. That said, if you are using smaller file sizes fat32 can suffice. Oct 18, 2019 this wikihow teaches you how to change an external usb hard drive s format on windows and mac computers. Learn more about erasing hard disks on mac from apple. The videos below demonstrate the complete process of formatting an external hard drive for full mac os x compatibility, this uses the new disk. How do i initialize a brand new hard drive in mac osx. In disk utility select your macs internal drive, making sure to click on the drive and not the volume beneath it.
Jan 22, 2012 i just installed a new seagate 320gb7200 hard drive in my 2004 macbook pro 15 laptop. It means that your mac is unable to read any data from the hard drive. Arrived on time and fit perfectly in my late 2009 macbook pro with a failed hard drive. Go to disk utilities and format the new drive guid macosx extended. 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. I have been using the new hard drive for over a month without any trouble. Choose either apfs or mac os extended journaled to format as a mac volume. Now im not too sure how to set this new hard drive up as in putting an os on it and formatting it correctly im not concerned with getting any of my old data back on it, i just want to set. Formatting a hard drive can change the file system to make it compatible with your computers operating system, as well as fix any nonphysical errors on the drive itself. Mac os x installation basics sata drive seagate support asean.
Create a new image and call it something like macbook pro date backup important. How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. You can always refer back to this table of contents for each step. 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. 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.
This will format the drive and prep it for the next step. How do i install and format new hard drive in mid2012 macbook pro. Time machine is a backup application made by apple. This will completely wipe the drive, deleting all the files on it and converting it to whatever file system you choose. Jan 04, 2012 smaller external hard drives, ssds, and usb flash keys format quickly, while a larger hard drive may take a while longer. Fortunately disk utility, built right into macos, can help. Apr 29, 2020 follow these easy steps to format a hard drive in windows 10, windows 8, windows 7, windows vista, or windows xp. Now your external drive has been formatted to be fully compatible with apple macos, and you can edit, read, and write files to it as you want. Rightclick on the icon for your external drive on mac desktop, then select get info. To reset a macbook, turn it on and immediately hold down one of these. Open disk management, the hard drive manager included with all versions of windows. External usb hard drives are lightweight, portable and inexpensive. The easiest way to do that is hit cmd and the spacebar at the same time and type in disk utility to. I would like to format my external hard drive so that i can edit in on my macbook pro.
Click on the partition button and wait until the volumes mount on the desktop. This post serves as the table of the contents of this series. Instead, a grey folder with a question mark will flash on the screen. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. Open finder and choose applications utilities disk utility to launch. How to partition a mac hard drive, ssd or create an apfs.
How to format a drive with the apfs file system on macos sierra. A bootable media including iso file, usb flash drive and cddvd, based in windows pe windows preinstallation environment, can load an operating system and run the partition. Click on reinstall mac os x to begin the process of installing. Reformat macbook pro to make brand new again josh benson. Feb 08, 2020 your advice on formatting the external hard drive is rather insightful. If the drive is internal, it should already show up in. Select the volume you just created this is the subentry under the drive entry from the left side list. Here are instructions on how to restore all applications and personal files from a time machine backup onto a new hard drive. How to reformat my hard drive using my macbook air quora. If a wireless network is available, you can choose it from the wi. When i logged on as administrator, the new aura ssd simply showed up.
Reformatting the drive will erase all data on the drive, so you should copy any data you. How to install macos or os x on a new hard drive for your mac. The maximum individual file size for exfat is 16 eb. Nov 23, 2016 before you format hard drive without os, you could prepare a bootable media so to boot the computer and then format hard drive with partition manager contained. Sep 06, 2019 select your new hard drive from the sidebar. My old hard drive crashed on my macbook pro mid 12 and i bought a new hard drive to use. It comes bundled with every mac that shipped with os x 10. The mac os x extended volume format is optimal for macs. How to restore a time machine backup on to a new hard drive.
Some people are asking for a way to format a hard drive for mac. Choose another file system from the format box and click erase. You may want to have little cups or a place with sides on it for the next few steps. This is the new file system that apple bought to macs with high sierra and it will be the. Jan 15, 2020 learn how to use macos recovery to reinstall the mac operating system on your builtin drive or an external drive. I did have to buy a special screw driver to get the brackets off my old hard drive and onto the new one. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. Whether you are trying to backup mac to an external hard drive, wipe out any personal information and sell the computer, or even use a new operating system, you need to format the hard drive on your mac or pc. You can format a drive using the disk utility in mac. Learn how to use macos recovery to reinstall the mac operating system on your builtin drive or an external drive. My hard drive crashed on my imac took it to computer repair they installed new hard drive, tried to recover data but could not, when we presented the imac to the apple store they told me i would have to buy back my old hd from them um hello no way, so thats why we went to another place that works on macs, so apple said i had lion on the mac, i. How to format a new internal ssd in macos high sierra.
Boot from the new drive and use migration assistant to move your old data. Oct 09, 2019 this wikihow teaches you how to format a seagate hard drive on a mac computer. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. My hard drive in my macbook completely broke a few weeks ago didnt have much on it thankfully, so i bought a new hard drive and replaced the old one. What you need to reformat macbook pro this post back up your macbook hard drive with time machine. Click the erase tab, choose a volume format from the dropdown menu and then type a name for the drive.
How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Open the disk utility menu when the reformatting process is finished, and click quit disk utility. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods revealed. Enter a name for the disk or volume, such as macintosh hd. Plug in the external enclosure with the old hard drive. How can i format a new hard drive i just installed on my. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater.
Before formatting any hard drive, its a good idea to backup any data or files you want to save before formatting. But before you can do anything, you need to make it clear that the hard. First question the screen is jumping with horizontal lines flashing different colors. Since formatting an external hard drive will erase all of its. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the.
If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. How to format a startup drive for a mac if you want to format a drive that will be used as your macs startup disk, the procedure is a little different from formatting it for use as a secondary. Turn the drive on, and make sure it appears in the finder. Apr 30, 2020 to format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. Before you can access a new or formatted drive in your operating system, you need to initialize it first and then create a partition on the drive. Launch disk utility and then click to select the external hard drive listed on the left.
I cannot get the laptop to boot from the mac os x install cd so that i can format the drive. To create a partition on a new drive, complete the following. If the external hard drive is pre formatted for mac, disk management will list 3 partitions and you will not be able to delete the health efi system partition because its a protected partition. Nov 01, 2018 for an instance, when you format macbook to invert the impacts of a virus, choose a time machine backup which was maintained before the installation of the virus on your macbook system. If you are trying to format mac external hard drive, you can go over the process step by step. New hard drive will not format installed a new debate 500gb 7200 rpm 32mb cache sata ssd hybrid hard drive on a mid 2009 macbook pro unibody. You will see the same thing if your hard drive suffers a catastophic failure. To format an external storage device, connect it to one of the ports on your mac.
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