Oct 06, 2016 force an external mac drive to mount via command line terminal commands in mac os x. Partitioning, naming and formatting the external hard drive. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. In os x yosemite and earlier versions, disk utility had a different interface. How to choose a format for an external drive in os x macissues. What are the best ways to get mac os x lion to read ntfs. What is the benefit of purchasing a mac formatted external. How to format a startup drive for a mac if you want to format a drive that will be used as your mac s startup disk, the procedure is a little different from formatting it for use as a secondary. What disk utility looks like in lion through yosemite. Select the external hard drive on the lefthand side. You can format a drive in os x using two applications. The easiest way to format the drive to fat32 or exfat is by using macoss built in disk utility. Apr 28, 2016 how to format flash drive on mac os x yosemite. Step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system.
May 02, 2015 the mac os x operating system is designed to make formatting the hard drive easy, quick and painless. This gives the hard drive a mac compatible hfs partition, it works with internal and external hard drives, usb drives, flash drives, usb keys. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. How to install os x after formatting your hard drive. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. Using a 2tb wd external drive, usb 2, connected to a brand new imac. Jul, 20 for mac owners, one of the most annoyinginconvenient aspects of owning a mac is the external drive compatibility. Formatting mac drives has changed in the disk utility app included with. However, the partition option remains greyed out for my hard drive and when i place the cursor over the greyed out partition. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. The drive was fine for me through snow leopard, mountain lion, and mavericks on my old mbp, and for the past month or so was okay on the imac. Change the partition layout from current to 1 partition. Os x yosemite, etc or create any other bootable mac os x volume from a. A western digital external hard drive can be used on both windows and mac osx.
When trying to save large files in final cut pro, the hard drive would save numerous files with none over 2gb in size. Before continuing, make sure that you have a backup of any files that. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility. How can i reformat the internal drive and install mountain. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows.
How to force a hard drive to unmount for formatting in mac. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. If you want to format your external hard drive to work with mac and windows computers, you should use exfat. Jul 28, 20 all external usb disks can be formatted to work on mac osx, but not always straight out of the box. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. Lion, mountain lion, mavericks, and yosemite are all examples of volumes found within the disk. Now that you know which format to use, check out our guide on how to format your hard drive on. Just follow these steps to format and erase your hard drives on mac. It can help users to format external hard drive under mac os x 10.
In the volume format list, select mac os extended journaled. Learn how to use macos recovery to reinstall the mac operating system on your builtin drive or an external drive. Choosing disk format type while formatting external drive. 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. Well show you everything you need to know about the. There is absolutely no loss in performance by repartitioning and re formatting a hard drive vs doing a 7 pass wipe on the hard drive and then repartitioning reinstalling. Cross compatibility rests on the os itself and additional plugins. 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. There is a learning curve to yosemite versus mountain lion, but then theres a learning curve between snow leopard and mountain lion. In this article, i will show easy solutions to format a hard drive or external hard drive for macos 10. If you also want to a solution for hard drive formatting under macos 10. How to format a wd hard drive to exfat or fat32 file system.
How to force a hard drive to unmount for formatting in mac os. Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. How to format flash drive on mac os x yosemite youtube. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. In disk utility on your mac, format disks or volumes using apple file system. For some mac models, the partition option would be greyed out in disk utility. How to format a hard drive for mac the below steps can be used to format mac internal hard drives, external hard drives or usb flash drives. Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on mac.
Now, how can i reformat and install os x from the installer placed in the external hard drive. So i upgraded to the consumer version of yosemite this morning and it is still not recognizing it. I saw an article that stated that the drive can be formatted to work on both pc and mac or just mac. Operation failed dont understand the space issue and since the disk is unmounted ii am unable to do. File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple support.
I received a replacement 750gb external hard drive from western digital. Format external hard drive or usb drive for mac easeus. To format an external storage device, connect it to one of the ports on your mac. For example, if you will be using the drive to store videos you could use something like lindas mac or videos. This will work in all modern versions of apple mac osx including 10. Then, click erase at the bottom to format the drive.
How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. If a wireless network is available, you can choose it from the wi. While for the most part drives ship in formats that are universally recognized among operating systems so data can at least be read, there are times when you may wish to wipe a drive and set it up to be most compatible with your mac. Every disk used with os x needs to be partitioned with one or more volumes. How to format flash drive on mac os x yosemite you david. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. Here are the steps to partition an external hard drive for mac and windows pc, which is a little tricky. Disk wont format external drives for mac wd community. But sometimes, the units themselves, which carry proprietary firmware for the controller, may vary. Then, select your hard drive from the left sidebar. If the drive is going to be your main drive then something like macintosh hd will be just fine.
In many cases, we learn that the native format of external drives that work. How to format a hard drive in mac os x dumb little man. How to format an external hard drive for mac duration. The disk utility application includes tools and settings that are userfriendly even for mac beginners.
Also, there is no risk of confusing your data with the old data thats on the drive, since that data has been orphaned and there is no way for the operating system nor. This howto shows you the steps using disk utility in os x 10. In this tutorial we look at formatting disks via the gui app called disk utility and its equivalent command line tool diskutil. How to reinstall macos from macos recovery apple support. Mac disk utility is a builtin application in all mac os versions including os x 10. The previous defunct hd was also fat32, which i did not realize upon receiving and using.
Install and run mac os x yosemite from a usb flash drive duration. Not enough space to partition when formatting in mac osx 10. Be sure to make a clone of your current system so you can easily replace yosemite should you have issues with it. To format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. Os x drive formatting guide using disk utility with. Bevor du fortfahrst, stelle sicher, dass du ein backup aller dateien angelegt. May 29, 2016 i have wd my passport ultra 259f media portable hard drive. Use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other. How to format a usb external disk for mac osx using disk. Given that i am new to mac environment, i was wondering if anyone could.
Apr 16, 2016 hi all, i have having problems in regards the process of formatting my external hard drive. Completely format external hard drive under mac os x 10. Formatting an external hard drive for mac only or pc and. Fortunately, increasing your storage can be as simple as plugging an external hard drive into one of the ps4s usb 3. For instructions on how to format a drive in mac os 10. 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. Apr 11, 2012 is there any reason why i should think of formatting an external hard drive that would work for both pc and mac. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step. There many users ask if they can format a hard drive under macos 10. Dec 10, 2015 formatting an external drive to work with your mac can be done in several ways. Sometimes you want to wipe out all the data thats on a hard drive or solidstate driveerase it and start over. I am trying to partition my hard drive so it can be read on both mac and pc. So, we suggest that its better to use a pc to partition an external hard drive for macos and windows.
When your external hard drive is full of junk files, or you will resell your device, you may need to format it to regain the full storage or wipe. How to format hard drive for mac compatibly in os x disk utility. Whilst this tutorial is entitled how to install os x yosemite onto an external. I did some research and came across a forum post saying some seagate drives are not comparable with yosemite yet. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. The videos below demonstrate the complete process of formatting an external hard drive for full mac os x compatibility, this uses the. Then proceed to highlight your computers hard drive. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Force an external mac drive to mount via command line terminal commands in mac os x. Formatting external hard drives for editing both in mac and. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Following site procedures for reformatting to mac os extended journaled and erasing the disk using mac disk utility, i received the message unmounting disk mediakit reports not enough space on device for requested operation. I have just saved necessary files and also the installer for os x 10.
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. Im trying to format it in exfat or fat32 so it can be used on both windows and mac osx. Connect your external hard drive with your mac computer. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. I have backed up all my data i dont have enough hard drive space to make a time machine backup. Dec 19, 2017 the type or choice of name should depend on what you intend to use the drive for.
When you partition a disk, all of the volumes that are created are formatted as part of the process. This should work fine with all other versions of mac os x and all other apple mac computers. Jan 02, 2016 formatting an external drive on your mac is quite easy, though it isnt as evident and obvious as it is on a pc. With exfat, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years. Disk utility and terminal well be detailing both of these methods below.
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