Oct 31, 2006 you just copy the c drive files to d drive or e drive. I already backed up all the files i wanted to save. Using a previous version system installer disk doesnt usually work well. An incompatible file system, faulty permission settings, and unexpected formatting error are all likely to cause your external hard drive to show up. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac.
Unformat mac hard drive recover formatted hard drive on mac. Before formatting a drive, save any important data it contains. 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. Can you format seagate portable expansion hard drive without. Change the partition layout from current to 1 partition. Hi, i am trying to salvage data from a dead laptop by taking the hd and, from an external enclusure, using it as an external hd.
Click add icon to start to partition a hard drive on mac without losing data. How to repair external hard drive on mac without losing data. Fix external hard drive read only error on mac without losing data. How to format external hard drive on mac recoverit. But when i try to delete a file in my external hard drive it says it can. Hard drive to go between mac and pc without deleting anythin. How to reformat external hard drive without missing data.
Offline xbox update worked like a charm via usb stick. In disk utility on your mac, erase and reformat a storage device to use with a. If you decide to reformat or partition your drive at a later date, use disk utility supplied with the mac os x operating system. Either because there is no data to read, or the data that is there is corrupted. I am a complete novice and need help in obtaining an idiots guide to this process otherwise im in danger of losing all my itunes. Mar 29, 2009 i keep all my music on an external hard drive. If your hard disk is ntfs it works in windows but in mac is readonly. For whatever reason, formatting will erase everything on your seagate portable hard drive. How to recover formatted mac hard drive by formatting a hard drive on mac, you can fix a few hard drive issues and protect it from virus attack. Mar 10, 2020 3 the best mac hard drive data recovery software there are tens of thousands of products that can be used to get the work done easily when it comes to subjected question. But it is very easy to get a mac to use and understand an ntfs formatted drive. How to reformat an external hard drive without losing your. May 22, 2014 partition a mac hard drive without losing a bit of your data. If your hard disk is fat32, it works in both windows and mac but prone to viruses when used with windows.
Just copy all the files on the usb drive onto your hard drive. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Itll probably take a long time, but itll be worth it. Get through this article and get the ways of recovering formatted mac hard drive data. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing data. In this article, i will show you how to reformat external hard drive without losing data. This is a rather drastic option which will wipe out everything on your hard drive, so you will need a complete backup of all data and applications before reformatting. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. Learn how to use macos recovery to reinstall the mac operating system on your builtin drive or an external drive. How to partition a hard drive on mac without losing data. Now, i have a new macbook pro and all my data is still on that external hd. Of course, its the easiest way to reformat external hard drive on mac.
So, we suggest that its better to use a pc to partition an external hard drive for macos and windows. Apr 14, 2020 by this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for mac and pc without losing any data. Type the name of the volume you want to convert, and then press enter. Jan 16, 2020 how to recover formatted mac hard drive by formatting a hard drive on mac, you can fix a few hard drive issues and protect it from virus attack. Today im going to show you how to format any hard drive so you can use it to back up your mac as well as answer a lot of questions my clients. Then, you can share external hard drive between mac and pc. Download and install external hard drive formatting software for mac. I looked in disk utility and its formatted as msdot fat and remember i use mac. Right click on the partition and select delete volume this will remove the partition.
In todays video, we show you how to completely reformat your mac and set it back to factory settings, all without the need for a recovery disk or drive. I have just saved necessary files and also the installer for os x 10. The incompatibility of the file system is the main cause of the errorexternal hard drive read only on mac. To format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. Yes, what you can, and what you should do are 2 diff. Awecleaner is the comprehensive mac cleaning software. How can i format this drive in windows 7 home premium. Once the formatting process gets started, your data on the hard drive will be removed. Reformat your hard drive sometimes it is necessary to totally reformat your hard drive. Easy steps to reformat external hard drive on mac step 1.
How to unformat mac hard drive formatted mac hard drive recovery. How to format a disk to ntfs using mac os x ask different. Select the external hard drive on the lefthand side. Select the mac drive from the list of drives make sure this is the drive you want to work on, if you do it for the windows formatted drive in the list, it may cost you a lot of important data. How to replace hard drive without losing apple community. Reformatting external hard drive without losing files i recently switched from a crashed hp to a macbook and am trying to reformat my external hard drive, but it looks like every option requires me to delete the files on my hard drive. Rightclick on windows icon, select disk management. Well show you everything you need to know about the.
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. Formatted to windows but need to reformat to mac help wd. It offers easy format option to help mac users to format a hard drive or external device under mac os. If you dont want to worry about losing all your data on the chance your external hard drive becomes corrupted, you should keep multiple backups of the data in different places. I have tried mac os extended, mac os extended journaled, ms dos file system and unix file. I have backed up all my data i dont have enough hard drive space to make a time machine backup. You have to complete an extra step that does a highlevel erase before doing a more comprehensive lowlevel one. Click separate volumes, enter the name and size or drag the controls to set the size you prefer, and select a format for the partitions. I was told it needs to be extended journaled but im not sure how to reformat so that i can delete files on my external on my mac. Here are the steps to partition an external hard drive for mac and windows pc, which is a little tricky. How to convert mac hard drive to windows without losing data. Do i really need to reformat my external hard disk to mac dos. Oct 15, 2015 click on the erase tab, choose your external hard drive and select mac os extended journaled and then click erase then simply drag and drop your data onto your newly formatted disk.
Mac disk formatting software doyourdata super eraser for mac offers secure solution to reformat or highlevel format mac solid state drive. The best way to reformat a mac hard drive is from the operating system disk you currently have installed. On an apple imac computer, you can perform hard drive partitioning using disk utility without losing a piece of information. In case you want to format an external hard drive or you want to know how to format flash drive on mac.
They are great for backing up data, creating extra storage space on your computer and transferring large amounts of data between two or more computers. 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. Using disk utility, you will be able to create multiple partitions on your disk without losing any data. Bonus tip data recovery from formatted hard drive on mac.
Is there any way i can reformat the hd to work on my pc without losing the movie. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. Partition a mac hard drive without losing a bit of your data. Jan 15, 2020 learn how to use macos recovery to reinstall the mac operating system on your builtin drive or an external drive. You just need to run awecleaner on your mac, click disk manager, and select the hard drive to format. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. How to unformat mac hard drive formatted mac hard drive. Windows uses nfts file format while mac drives use hfs, this means macs cant write. But since i have the new macbook pro 2011 only a few months since i got it it didnt come with an installation disc, but instead already came with all the applications. So, now you know how to reformat a hard drive for mac. Aug 25, 2016 today im going to show you how to format any hard drive so you can use it to back up your mac as well as answer a lot of questions my clients have asked me when going through this process.
With my previous laptops pcs, ive always stored my data on an external hard drive. It means that the user needs to ensure that the programs or the software mentioned in this part are the ones which will get the work done for the user easily. Dec 05, 2019 rightclick on windows icon, select disk management. How to reformat your mac without a recovery drive or disk. Reformatting external hard drive without apple community. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. Ntfs is a file system that is optimal for windowsbased computer. For the following scenarios, you may need to format the hard drive on your mac. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Click on the erase tab, choose your external hard drive and select mac os extended journaled and then click erase then simply drag and drop your data onto your newly formatted disk. You may need to reformat it to work with both computers. How to partition a mac hard drive without losing data.
If a wireless network is available, you can choose it from the wi. How to format a drive without deleting files using free space. How do i reformat a mac hd to ntfs for use with windows 8. If it cant, check if the connection port has dust and clean it if necessary. However, if you want to convert ntfs to exfat to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc, 3 steps are required. I needed to perform an offline system update for xbox one s but i only have macs. This procedure will destroy any data currently on the drive. Reformatting external hard drive on mac is a bit different because it doesnt. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility.
Installed the paragon ntfs for mac using 10 day trial. For example, keep a backup on your local devices, and store backup copies with a cloud storage provider as well. When, why, and how should i reformat my hard drive. Read about it and found that id have to reformat it in mac os extended journaled. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. Hi, i have a wd essentials 1tb external hard drive formatted to windows 7. It will reformat the ssd on mac and permanently erase all data on the ssd without affecting the service life of the mac ssd. Erasing a disk or volume permanently deletes all of its files. Computers will lose performance over many months of use if it has not been defragged, multiple spyware infections, multiple virus infections, registry errors, files left. They are great for backing up data, creating extra storage space on your computer and transferring. If you have any files you want to save, copy them to another storage device. How to reformat an external hard drive without losing everything. Erase and reformat a storage device in disk utility on mac apple.
Losing out data is the saddest thing that can happen to anyone. And you wont find any other methods that could be done as easy as this one. You will see the same thing if your hard drive suffers a catastophic failure. However, the new machine cannot read the disk and keeps prompting me to reformat it. How to recover data from a formatted external hard drive. By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for mac and pc without losing any data. How to reformat a macbook pro 2011 hard d apple community. How to reformat mac external harddrive for pc march 2014. Instead of reinstall the operating system, the better choice is to format mac hard drive.
Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. Thankfully there is a workaround to recover your data. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. 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. Or if you wish to be able to transfer back and forth pc to mac or mac to pc, select the fat32 format. Currently i store about 64gb of an itunes library on there. Dec 31, 2017 hi, i have a wd essentials 1tb external hard drive formatted to windows 7. Ive just bought my first mac and understand that i now need to reformat the disc to mac. All options, including format, is greyed out except to delete volume. Format external hard drive without data l apple community. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide.
How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing. 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 reformat the external hard drive on mac without losing data. How to reformat to mac without losing files external drives. Just remember that the format options on the erase panel change with time. How can i reformat the internal drive and install mountain. With these solutions, you can easily format a hard drive under macos 10. Many people store their valuable data on the external hard drive to keep it safe.
I have an external hard drive which is formatted for mac and has been loaded with movies stored on a mac computer. Feb 21, 2020 the incompatibility of the file system is the main cause of the errorexternal hard drive read only on mac. If you want to use data recovery software, you need to perform a quick format or the mac equivalentbut why. That allowed me to format a usb drive as ntfs with full readwrite access and then write the system update files to the usb drive. Although the mac operating system allows you to read the files on external hard drive, you cant write files to it because the way that ntfs writes data to the device is. If you dont want to lose the important data, you need to use seagate recovery software. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. How to reinstall macos from macos recovery apple support. Get stellar mac data recovery and follow instructions to install the application on your mac computer. Dec, 2007 i have an external hard drive which is formatted for mac and has been loaded with movies stored on a mac computer. How do i reformat my external hard drive without deleting any. One of the biggest complaints i used to get when working with a clients computer was that it was so slow and it used to be a lot faster. If youre not erasing the disk your mac started up from, you dont need to. Formatting an ntfs hard drive to mac format youtube.
How to reformat my hard drive using my macbook air quora. Tutorial to repair external hard drive that is corrupted, formatted, unmountable, unreadable, inaccessible, not working, not shown up on mac. To open disk utility, double click on your internal hard drive mounted on the. Upon restart, could not get the os to boot, so i started from dvd to reformat the hard drive. Recover lost data from external hard drive before repairing it to avoid data loss. How to format a drive without deleting files using free space youtube. Convert formatted drive from mac to windows info remo. Instead, a grey folder with a question mark will flash on the screen. Step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system. Here are the three solutions to format a hard drive under macos 10. For some mac models, the partition option would be greyed out in disk utility. External usb hard drives are lightweight, portable and inexpensive.
833 185 215 347 899 150 487 571 247 677 1303 1554 1117 67 1280 1308 631 250 40 320 780 196 848 915 1140 1356 1049 718 61 467 1349 1063 729 1309 695