Why Need to Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PCThe top 5 disk formatting tools for Windows and Mac can help you securely format hard drive or external device under Windows/Mac OS. This is useful if a drive is being used under both Operating System (OS)to. Most WD Drives come formatted in the NTFS (Windows) or HFS+ (Mac) format.A Western Digital external hard drive can be used on both Windows and Mac OSX. This is useful if a drive is being used under both Operating System (OS) to move files between the two environments. How to format a WD hard drive to exFAT or FAT32 file system A Western Digital external hard drive can be used on both Windows and Mac OSX.Windows PC and Mac use different filesystems. Thus in order to make the hard drive Windows formatted, you have to convert the file system to NTFS or FAT32.Need to format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows. Windows-formatted hard drives have either NTFS file system of an FAT32 file system. Three Options for Accessing NTFS Drives on MacThe Windows system uses a hard drive with a different file system than the Mac systems. Then your hard drive is able to donated, resold, lent, or abandoned. It will securely format the hard drive and permanently erase the data.
The Best Paid Third-Party Driver: Paragon NTFS for MacLikewise, the Mac OS X Operating System can read from, but cannot write to, an external drive that has been formatted for a PC using the NTFS file system. So, if you want to use an external hard drive on both Windows and Mac, you need to format it to a filesystem that is compatible with Windows PC and Mac. They are incompatible with each other. ![]() If your external drive saves files larger than 4GB or you plan to save larger files to this drive, converting to FAT32 is not recommended.In addition, a FAT32 partition must be not more than 32GB if you create it in Windows Disk Management. As long as we format the external hard drive to one of these 2 file systems, it can be shared between Mac and Windows.Both FAT32 and exFAT have advantages and disadvantages.FAT32: FAT32 works with all versions of Windows, Mac OS, Linux, game consoles, etc.However, single files on a FAT32 drive can't be larger than 4GB. Similarly, Windows OS will ask us to format the HFS+ formatted drive when we connecting such a disk, let along edit files saved on HFS+ formatted hard disks unless we resort to third party programs.But luckily, there are file systems well supported by both Mac and Windows PC, and they are FAT32 (it might be called MS-DOS on Mac) and exFAT. However, when we connect a NTFS formatted disk to Mac, Mac OS X doesn't allow us to write files to the drive neither edit files, though it can read a NTFS drive. MiniTool Partition Wizard is one representative. Paragon NTFS for Mac is such a driver.Besides, you can also use the paid third-party file system converters to convert NTFS to FAT32 or exFAT which are compatible with both Mac and PC. They work well and they have better performance than the free solutions which will be mentioned in the following part. Three Options for Accessing NTFS Drives on Mac Paid Third-Party DriversSome paid third-party NTFS drivers for Mac can be used to access NTFS drives on Mac. ![]() Format A Hard Drive From Windows Code With TheThe Best Free Third-Party Drivers: FUSE for macOSFUSE for macOS is a free solution to access NTFS on Mac. If you purchase a Seagate drive, you can even get a free download of Paragon NTFS for Mac.All in all, it does its works well and gives you good user’s experience. More importantly, it can code with the potential corruption. Additionally, it can mount partitions automatically and safely. If you want to use it all the time, you need to pay for it.With it, you don’t have to fiddle with terminal commands to mount partitions manually. Perhaps, it will be unstable forever. It is just for educational purposes, and it is available on Mac OS 10.12 Sierra. Apple’s Experimental NTFS-Writing Support: Don’t Do This, SeriouslyAlthough we mentioned this method in our article, we still don’t recommend it because it is the least tested. You can go to google the steps and see how complex they are. This will be safer, but you need to do more work. Thus, your Mac is in danger when using this driver.However, you can use it to manually mount NTFS partitions in read-write mode if you never mind using the Terminal. If you are a personal user, you can try its Professional Edition.Download this software to your computer. How to Convert NTFS to FAT32 or exFAT Without Data LossTo format hard drive for Mac and Windows without data loss, we suggest using MiniTool Partition Wizard and its " Convert NTFS to FATS32" function. To keep it safe, you can choose this best NTFS/HFS+ to FAT/exFAT converter: MiniTool Partition Wizard. Then, the drive can be used on both Mac and PC.There should be some important data on the drive. Just open the software to enter its main interface. However, if there is more than one NTFS partition, view Copy Disk to get specific operations.Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition WizardThe Free Edition of this software also enables you to do this job.Firstly, you need to delete the partition by using this software. Instead, you can use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition to create a copy for your external drive, which is faster.If there is only one NTFS partition on external hard drive, refer to the tutorial Copy Partition to get instructions. Then, you can share external hard drive between Mac and PCHowever, if you want to convert NTFS to exFAT to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC, 3 steps are required.Step 1: Transfer Data out from External Hard DriveYou can choose to copy and paste those files to other external devices or internal hard disk of Windows, but it will cost much time. If there is more than one NTFS partition, convert all of them one by one.At last, click " Apply" button to make the change executed.When MiniTool Partition Wizard shows it applies the change successfully, the original NTFS will finally become a FAT32 partition.By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for Mac and PC without losing any data. After that, please click on " OK".Fourthly, you will go back to the main interface. At the same time, you can also set some other parameters for this partition, including " Partition Label", " Drive Letter", " Size And Location". Here, you can choose " exFAT" from the " File System" setting option. Here, you need to choose that partition and click on " Create Partition" from the left action pane.Thirdly, you will see a pop-out window. After that, you should click " Apply" to keep this change.Secondly, the target partition will become unallocated. Mkv to avi converter free for macThat is because there are cases reporting FAT32 (MS-DOS) or exFAT partitions created on Mac did not work well on Windows.Please skip to Solution 1: Format External Hard Drive to FAT32 to get steps to create a FAT32 partitions or go back to Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard to get operations to create an exFAT partition. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step.Step 2: Create a FAT32 or exFAT Partition on Windows PCSome people may ask why create such partitions on Windows rather than Mac. How to Convert HFS+ to FAT32 or exFAT without Losing DataBesides, you can format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows by converting HFS+ to FAT32 or exFAT without losing any data.Step 1: Backup Data in HFS+ Partition on MacJust transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on Mac.
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