How to format your hard drive 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. Seagate internal drives must be formatted before use.
Drives that will be bootable are formatted during the process of installing the operating system (ie, Windows or MacOS). Drives that will be used for storage can be formatted according to the instructions below. Or, if you have a drive that is formatted for a different type of computer or a drive that is not preformatted, you will need to format the drive before you can use it. Formatting erases all data on the drive. 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. For instructions on how to format your hard drive on a Mac, please reference the following links: Formatting your drive in Windows • To open the Disk Management press and hold the Windows key ( ) + ( R ) • Type compmgmt.msc • If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
This is a detailed tutorial on how to format a hard drive in Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP. How to Format a Hard Drive You must format a drive before using it in Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, or XP. Share Pin Email Print WLADIMIR BULGAR / Getty Images Windows.
• In the pane on the left, under Storage, click Disk Management. • If the drive is secondary storage and hasn't been initialized previously you may be prompted to initialize the disk first. Note: MBR for drives under 2TB and GPT for drives over 2TB • The drive should say unallocated Note: If it does not you will need to right-click and delete the volume first. 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 it's a protected partition. To delete this partition you have to use Microsoft Diskpart Erase utility. Please see the instructions. • Right-click and select new simple volume • Click next 3 times • Type the name of the drive in “Volume Label” • Make sure quick format is selected • Click next then finished See more information at the.
Photo by Sharon Vaknin/CNET If you need to expand your storage space with an external hard drive and you use both Mac and PC, you'll likely run into a few obstacles. Hard drives advertised as being compatible with Windows and Mac OS may have misled you into thinking you could actually use one hard drive for both computers.
You can, but not out of the box. Most external hard drives (HD) are sold in a format called NTFS, which is designed to work with Windows. Macs read and write to a different format, called HFS+. Another format, called FAT32 is compatible with both OS platforms. Here's a look at how the different HD format types function: FAT32 (File Allocation Table) - Natively read/write FAT32 on Windows and Mac OS X. Pdf editor app for windows and macbook.
- Maximum file size: 4GB - Maximum volume size: 2TB NTFS (Windows NT File System) - Natively read/write NTFS on Windows. - Read-only NTFS on Mac OS X - Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard and above but has proven instable.
- Maximum file size: 16 TB - Maximum volume size: 256TB HFS+ (Hierarchical File System, aka Mac OS Extended) - Natively read/write HFS+ on Mac OS X - Required for Time Machine - Maximum file size: 8 - Maximum volume size: 8EiB Isn't FAT32 the obvious solution? According to the list above, formatting your hard drive to FAT32 so that you can read and write on either OS seems like the obvious solution. The video and directions below will guide you through the process, but before you format your HD to FAT32, beware of these drawbacks: • FAT32 offers no security, unlike NTFS, which allows you to set permissions. If your HD gets into the wrong hands, that person will be able to access your data.