Free download, install and run icare data recovery. So to use the optical device on both computers, its file system should be changed to a much more compatible. Then, connect seagate drive to your pc and make sure that it can be detected by windows. The next popup window is where you select how you want to format your seagate expansion drive for mac. Fat32 works with all versions of windows, mac os, linux, game consoles, etc. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. How to format seagate goflex ehd for both pc and mac use. If you are techy and use windows and mac computers frequently, then you might need to transfer data between mac and pc. Chris besides the formatting difference, there is software on the pc version and no software on the mac version. Oct 09, 2019 this wikihow teaches you how to format a seagate hard drive on a mac computer. But somehow, macos doesnt allow you to write data to the drive. But sometimes a little help is needed, if you decide to start using your windows drive mainly on your new mac. And youll detailed tutorial on how to format seagate drive for mac and pc in the. Ive had drivers for mac on windows systems and ntfs drivers for windows on my mac and all work well.
The driver for window that i have been downloading crossplatform has not been working windows doesnt start up until i restore, and then the ehd always asks to be scanned. Before you jump in and format your seagate backup plus on your mac or macbook. Feb 03, 2020 disk utility in macos high sierra or later can erase most disks and volumes for mac using either the newer apfs apple file system format or the older mac os extended format, and it automatically chooses a compatible format for you. But a problem arises when you have a portable seagate hard drive and would like to use it with both mac and windows computers. Also, if you need to share one hard drive for both windows and mac, you need to use the correct file system. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods revealed. I am looking to purchase a seagate external hard drive for my macbook air. Also, there are two versions of mac products freeagent go pro for mac has usb and firewire 800, and freeagent go for mac usb usb 2. It is the file system format that gets tricky, which defines how we store and access files on the. Plug the disk into a windows vista sp1 or windows 7 computer. Both fat32 and exfat have advantages and disadvantages. Connect the hdd to a mac and format the drive as fat32 and then connect the same mac hdd to windows and convert it to ntfs. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the.
File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple. Want to format a hard drive for mac and pc compatibility. Here is how to password protect external hard drives on windows and mac. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide.
Mar 31, 2020 how to share an external hard drive between mac and windows by tyler lacoma march 31, 2020 compatibility issues between microsofts windows and apples macos have diminished sharply over the. Need to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. If you have both windows and mac computers in your office, its important to understand their different storage requirements before buying an external hard drive. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. Nov 11, 2019 mac and windows computers have their unique interface, which attracts users with different tastes.
Hi, need some help on how to format seagate 1tb hdd into my mac pro with 2 os thanks. Want to use one external drive for both your windows pc and your mac. If you want to connect backup plus desktop to a mac as well as a windows pc, you can install special software that allows macs to read and write files to ntfs. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system.
This is the best solution seagate offers for transferring data between windows and mac computers. Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the formatting. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Moving files from macformatted external hard drive to pc. For example, in the screenshot below, the mac formatted drive is disk 2. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. Formatting seagate hdd in mac pro with 2 os window7 and mac. The fat volume format is showing its age, but a huge variety of oses know how to work with it. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Seagate backup plus hub user manual optional formatting and. Seagate backup plus desktop user manual optional formatting. Windows will format the portable hard disk drive and notify you once the process has finished.
You can format the external hard drive or usb drive to make it compatible with both mac and windows machines. How to format a drive for mac and pc compatibility macyourself. Format external driveusb exfat in windows 10 in simple steps. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. People might need to format a hard drive or an external hard drive in windows 10 for various reasons. Both operating systems use different formats for reading and writing to a. First, note the number of the disk in the disk management window. How to format a windows disk drive for a mac seagate blog. I have a seagate 500gb expansion drive which i brought about a year ago. Mac free seagate external hard drive recovery for mac free. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing data.
How to use seagate hard drive for both mac and windows. For some reason i lost half of my space on this hard drive once i formatted it. Now, click on the choose button to format and encrypt your drive. How to format seagate external hard drive for both mac. This wikihow teaches you how to format a seagate hard drive on a mac computer. Therfore, you can connect backup plus desktop to a windows pc without formatting the hard drive. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows by tyler lacoma march 31, 2020 compatibility issues between microsofts windows and apples macos have diminished sharply over the. You can format your external hard drive from either the pc or mac. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows by tyler lacoma march 31, 2020 compatibility issues between microsofts windows and. Choose the seagate portable expansion hard drive, and then the software will scan it for lost files. Mar 15, 2018 windows cant normally read macformatted drives, and will offer to erase them instead. However, single files on a fat32 drive cant be larger than 4gb. I assume it is but i am new to osx and like to check.
Oct 25, 2018 format seagate hard drive to fat32 or exfat. So the first step you must do is move all of your important data to your pc mac, or to cloud storage service. This tutorial explains how to format external hard driveusb flash drive exfat in windows 10. Recently, i have switched to mac and saw that my hard disk was not writable on mac. Before formatting any hard drive, its a good idea to backup any data or files you want to save before. Oct 06, 2019 youtube video showing formatting a seagate hard drive for mac. Just follow these steps to easily format a seag ate hard drive on your mac.
If you want to transfer files from a mac to windows pc and vice versa using an external portable hard drive then you have to have the external drive formatted in. As long as we format the external hard drive to one of these 2 file systems, it can be shared between mac and windows. First of all, as i said before, reformating will erase all your data that stored on the hard drive permanently. To format external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below.
How to format hard drives on windows, mac and linux. Recover data from seagate portable disk step by step. How do i reformat my seagate slim 500gb for macexternal. Remember, once the data is gone, theres no way to recover it. But if youre only formatting your seagate drive for mac, youll see all you need to know in the first 3 minutes. Well, for that you need to understand how external hard disks mostly work. You can format an external hard drive or thumb drive to work seamlessly with both mac and windows by using the exfat file system. To open the disk management press and hold the windows.
Before formatting any hard drive, its a good idea to backup. Give the drive one fat32 msdos partition, which both mac os x and windows can read and write. This thing is still unknown for many users but doesnt worry its not complex. Ideally, any hard disk can be used on either mac or windows pc. How to format a hard drive to work on mac and pc youtube.
Optionally, type a name for your disk in the name text box. Connect the seagate 500gb portable expansion hard drive to your computer and choose the proper recovery option. Seagate backup plus hub is available in two models, windows and mac. How to format your hard drive seagate support asean. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. How to password protect external hard drives on mac and. You have to set it up correctly before getting starting. Now, i have a new macbook pro and all my data is still on that external hd.
Do you know the solution to reformat a seagate hard drive for mac. Seagate expansion on mac, want it but can i use on my mac. How to format an external drive to work seamlessly. Mar 02, 2019 how to re format a seagate external hard drive for both mac and a pc. How to format a drive for mac and pc compatibility posted by ant on march 11th, 2012 43 comments if you have an external hard drive or usb flash drive that youd like to use on both macs and windows pcs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing. Hey all i got a seagate external hard drive so i can back up my first laptop which runs on windows vista yes, i know its the worst operating system but its a long story as to why i am still using it. For instructions on how to format your hard drive on a mac, please reference the. If you have documents on the drive either from a windows pc or from your mac, copy them off first.
Your backup plus desktop is formatted as ntfs for compatibility with windows out of the box. How to format a mac hdd to win ntfs using win 10 microsoft. I was using windows at that time, so i had no problem with it. Bonus tip data recovery from formatted hard drive on mac. Would you like to see a video showing you how to format your seagate drive. Formatting seagate hdd in mac pro with 2 os window7 and. Put in the settings for your seagate expansions formatting.
Mac free seagate external hard drive recovery software is fast, safe and recovers all files lost from seagate external hard drive due to various reasons, such as such as virus attack, power surge. However, ntfs is not fully compatible with mac computers. After the process is done, you will see that your drive is now encrypted. How to format seagate drive for mac and pc quickly and. A vast majority of video production will be done on a mac or windows operating system, so we arent going to cover linux. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. How to format seagate external hard drive under mac os. If you want to use the seagate expansion on a mac, you only need to reformat it using the. However there is a simple solution you can format the drive to fat32 or exfat that performs better than fat32. Thats all because its been initialized with windows nt file system ntfs, which is primarily for pcs.
That said, if you are using both a pc and mac in the workflow, youll need to use a different format. This also allows you to restore time machine backups on windows. With mac, whatever hard drive works on a normal pc should also work with a macintosh computer. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. If youve used your seagate expansion on a windows pc.
In the resulut, your external hard drive will work just fine with mac and windows. Please keep in mind that reformatting will result in the loss of all the data on the hard drive so. Hard drives in seagate s freeagent line except for the go pro for mac and the go for mac ship with ntfs, a file system designed for windows. But here id like to discuss what kind of file system you should format seagate to for mac and pc. It is easy to format a seagate external hard drive on windows pc. Seagate backup plus drive, you dont need to reformat the disk before copying.
So, you just bought a new external hard drive or a portable ssd and wanted to use it on your mac. How do i re format my seagate slim 500gb for mac external harddrive ehd for windows. Plug in your external hdd to the usb port of your computer then go to my computer find your external drive rightclick it and select format. Windows will format the portable hard disk drive and notify you once the process has. This is a good place to put files that you want both mac and windows to have readwrite access to. How to format seagate drive for mac and pc quickly and securely. However, this format doesnt support larger files, which can be problematic for transferring 4k videos and so on between macs and windows 10. How to format a hard drive on mac to work on mac and pc. Apr 14, 2020 as long as we format the external hard drive to one of these 2 file systems, it can be shared between mac and windows.
How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. You may also format your external drive into fat32 for use. This opens a new window for you to explore the files and folders on your mac. Jan 02, 2014 formatting seagate hdd in mac pro with 2 os window7 and mac. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows.
For instructions on how to format your hard drive on a mac, please reference the following links. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. I will leave windows instructions below for the benefit of windows users. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. How to use seagate hard drive for both mac and windows super. Yes, you can use your seagate expansion portable hard disk on mac. You can select the exfat format when using the disk. In general, macs will read windows formatted drives fat and, i believe ntfs, but windows doesnt recognize mac. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. For instance, users want to write data to and read data from, to do a clean installation of the windows system, to get rid of a virus or malware, to erase the data before giving the drive to someone else or throwing it away, or some other reasons. Sep 30, 2019 how to format your seagate backup plus for mac.
Can you format seagate portable expansion hard drive without. How to format a seagate freeagent for a macbook synonym. After realizing the respective properties of fat32 and exfat, you should know what you should format seagate drive to. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive.
Mar 12, 2018 want to format a hard drive for mac and pc compatibility. How to reformat a seagate external hard drive for both mac. Know that formatting deletes all the information on the drive. Seagate backup plus comes in a couple varieties one preformatted for mac, the other preformatted for windows but also readable on mac. 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. I understand that you are facing issues with windows 10. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system part 3. Next, open a command prompt window as administrator. That one trick the options screen is what usually catches people up when trying to change a drive from a windows format to a mac format.
Sep 12, 2019 format drive to exfat in windows 10 so it is read and write in mac os as well. The products claims it works only with pc windows, however, i have read multiple places that i can just format the drive and it will work fine with a mac. How to format a drive for mac and pc compatibility. How to format seagate for mac and windows computer. I just got a seagate goflex desk external drive, and after reading your article, i tried to format it for exfat but got an error. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. There some easytouse utilities can help you format a seag ate hard drive under mac os. Aug 25, 2012 how do i re format my seagate slim 500gb for mac external harddrive ehd for windows. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. You can format a drive using the disk utility in mac. Formatting is the best way to give an old seagate external hard drive its new life. Dec 29, 2015 how to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. However, i didnt find a way to format seagate external hard drive under mac os. Nov 19, 2015 now that we know the good and bad about every file system, let see how to format a drive in windows, mac, and linux.
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