Format Usb Drive For Mac And Pc

Posted : admin | On 15-09-2021

Any and all data on the USB drive will be destroyed during this process. Make sure the drive is blank, or copy the data to a safe place before proceeding. Insert a USB drive into your USB port. Open Windows Explorer. In the left-hand pane, locate your USB drive under This PC. Using your right mouse button, right click on your USB drive. Your PC’s primary boot drive (C:) hosting Windows and other programs appears as Disk 1. If your PC has a secondary “data” drive (D:), Disk Management assigns it as Disk 0.

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If you buy an external drive—such as one of our recommended desktop hard drives, portable hard drives, or USB 3.0 flash drives—you may need to reformat it to work with your operating system of choice, since different operating systems use different file systems to process data.

Although it’s true that any drive is compatible with both Windows and macOS, most drives come preformatted for Windows out of the box. If you use Windows, chances are good that you won’t need to reformat your external hard drive—unless you buy it secondhand, or you plan on switching between operating systems, your drive should come ready to use. If you use a Mac, the likelihood that you’ll have to reformat the drive is higher. But fear not: The process is simple.

Choosing the right format for your drive

Non-Linux computers can use four main file systems: NTFS, HFS+, FAT32, and exFAT. So what do those four file systems mean, and which one is right for you?

Format Usb Drive For Mac And Pc

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  • If you plan to use your drive for File History backups on a Windows computer, and you use only Windows, stick to NTFS (New Technology File System). NTFS is native to Windows, and most hard drives are preformatted for this file system. macOS and Linux, however, can only read files stored on such a drive; they cannot write to an NTFS-formatted drive. NTFS has huge file and partition size limits that you won’t hit; that makes it a better choice than FAT32, which has a 4 GB size limit per file. Many backup archives and video files are larger than 4 GB.
  • If you plan to use your drive for Time Machine backups on a Mac, and you use only macOS, use HFS+ (Hierarchical File System Plus, or macOS Extended). A drive formatted this way will not mount on a Windows computer without additional software. Like NTFS, the HFS+ file system has file and partition size limits that are much bigger and more suitable for modern use than those of FAT32.
  • FAT32 (File Allocation Table 32) is an older file system that both Windows machines and Macs still support. FAT32 was introduced in Windows 95 in 1997, but it remains useful because nearly every system can use it. Unfortunately, it isn’t any good for storing movies and other large files: FAT32 has a size limit of 4 GB per file, so your files have to be small.
  • If you need to transfer files larger than 4 GB between Mac and Windows computers, exFAT (extended File Allocation Table) is the best option, although it doesn’t work with File History or Time Machine. exFAT works on both macOS and Windows, and it doesn’t have the file size limit that FAT32 does, so you’ll be able to back up movies and other large files.
  • If you want to use a single external hard drive to back up both File History and Time Machine, you can partition it so that some of the drive is NTFS and some is HFS+. First, partition the drive using Disk Utility with macOS, and (using our walkthrough below) format one part as HFS+ and the other as FAT32; then, plug the drive into Windows and reformat the FAT32 portion as NTFS. Now your computer will see your single drive as multiple, smaller drives. Make sure to leave plenty of room for future backups on both partitions. It’s possible, but tricky, to change the size of a partition later on in Windows and macOS; we recommend backing up the data on your drive before attempting the task, since it’s possible to wipe your drive doing this.

Now that you’ve figured out those differences, it’s time to reformat your hard drive. Reformatting will delete all the data stored on the drive, so if you need to reformat, do so as soon as you buy the drive. If you already have data stored on the drive, back that data up elsewhere, reformat the drive, and then put your data back on the drive.

Reformatting your drive in Windows

To reformat a drive on Windows:

Format Usb Drive For Mac And Pc Scheme

  1. Plug in the drive and open Windows Explorer.
  2. Right-click the drive and choose Format from the drop-down menu.
  3. Select the file system you want, give your drive a name under Volume label, and make sure the Quick Format box is checked.
  4. Click Start, and the computer will reformat your drive.

When you’ve completed the process, you can open the external drive in Windows Explorer.

Reformatting your drive in macOS

To reformat your drive for macOS:

  1. Plug in the drive and open the Finder.
  2. Click the Go menu, select Utilities from the drop-down menu, and open Disk Utility.
  3. Choose your external drive from the left sidebar, and click Erase.
  4. Give your drive a name and select the file system you want from the Format drop-down.
  5. Click Erase, and the system will reformat your drive.

When you’ve completed the process, you can open the external drive by clicking on the drive’s icon on the desktop of your Mac.

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Note: Using the formatting options above on a drive that has data on it may not be enough to prevent some of that data from being recoverable. If you're formatting a drive in order to give it away, sell it, or recycle it, make sure to securely erase the drive to prevent data recovery.

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Further reading

Format Usb Drive For Mac And Pc

  • The Best Portable Hard Drive

    by Joel Santo Domingo

    After a new round of testing hard drives in 2020, we found that the 2 TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim is still the best portable hard drive for most people.