Summary: This article describes the ways to reformat external hard drive on mac without losing data. Why do I need to reformat external hard drive? External hard drive is useful that can be very convenient to help us to backup, store data and transfer files among computers. I have a Lacie d2 Quadra 1tb External Hard Drive. I had it for years on a Mac. But unfortunately it bit the dust and I decided to get a PC. Now either because of time, corruption or because it may have been formatted for a Mac when I plug it into my PC I cant access it. For example, convert E: /fs:ntfs would convert drive E to the NTFS format. Type the name of the volume you want to convert, and then press Enter. You must use the existing name of the volume or the conversion will be canceled. Which helps conserve storage space on your hard disk and move files quickly. But it is not always so fluent to move files between Mac and PC, namely, between macOS and Windows. The two different operation system have different default file system: the default file system on Windows is NTFS, while it is HFS+ or APFS on macOS. ![]() It should be noted that the HFS+ and APFS are not compatible with Windows and NTFS is read-only on macOS. In order to make our external hard drive seamlessly work on both Mac and PC, we need to format our drive to a file system supported by both platforms, so the contents can be read on both platforms. Which file format should I use? You can choos a file format that's right for your circumstances based on the operating system and storage content you use frequently. APFS (Apple File System) - This is the new file system that Apple bought to Macs with High Sierra and it will be the default if you are using that version of macOS. It is being more efficient and more reliable. But it won't be readable or usable by a Mac that isn't running High Sierra, and Windows won't be able to read or write either. MacOS Extended (also known as HFS+) - If your Mac isn't updated to High Sierra it will be the default file system on the Mac. You can encrypt your drive and require a password to access it. Step 2: Download Kodi 17.4 with support for Apple TV 4K from here:. Kodi app for mac pro. Step 3: Once you have Kodi.DEB file downloaded for Apple TV 4K, all you need to do is to generate a signed IPA file for it, and then sideload it using Xcode on Mac. ![]() There's also an option of MacOS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted) if you are likely to have file names that require capital letters. Windows can read HFS+ drives but can't write to them. However, It is a good choice if you are likely to reformat external hard disk and don't want anyone to access the contents of the drive should you accidentally lose it. NTFS - This is Windows' default file system. MacOS can only read NTFS, it can't write to it. Cons: By default, NTFS is read-only on macOS. So read-only can't be a reason for us to give up using NTFS, especially when we have high requirements on transfer speed and performance of drives. MS-DOS FAT (aka FAT32) - it can be read and written by Mac, Linux and Windows, so if you ofter transfer files among windows and mac. You might want to use this file system. Cons: It doesn't support files larger than 4GB, drive partition larger than 32GB on Windows, or drive partition larger than 2TB on macOS; FAT32 offers no security and it's more susceptible to disk errors. So FAT32 is suitable when we want to store files of relatively small sizes and the drive doesn't have a large capacity. Otherwise, FAT32 is not the best choice for us. ExFAT - this is similar to FAT32 above. Both Windows and Mac can read drives formatted with this. The main difference is it can store files over 4GB. Cons: It is not compatible with older operating systems. We must have macOS 10.6.5 or newer, and PC need to be Windows Vista SP1, Windows 7 or newer. As most users have upgraded operating system, it is actually quite easy to meet to lowest operating system requirements of exFAT. So exFAT can be a very good option to share external hard drive between macOS and Windows. Steps to reformat external hard drive mac Here's how to format an external hard drive if you are planning to format it with a Mac. Launch Disk Utility. Either head to Applications > Utilities, or tap Command + Space and start typing Disk Utility. Once Disk Utility is open you'll see the list of available drives on the left. Choose the drive you'd like to format. NOTE that formatting your drive will erase the contents, so make sure you back it up first! Click on the Erase option from the four options available in the main window. A panel will drop down, warning you that erasing the selected drive will destroy all data on the drive. In the Erase panel, enter the new name for the volume you're about to create.
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