Now, i have a new macbook pro and all my data is still on that external hd. Well show you everything you need to know about the. While drives are sold as plugandplay, formatting prior to use will give you optimal performance and compatibility with your mac. Copying the files from your mac to an external drive allows you to save data on your own terms. Are you about to install macos high sierra or later on the disk. Now click the format dropdown menu and select mac os extended journaled, encrypted. Step 2 open finder and on the left pane, find all the listed drives.
Choose mac os extended journaled encrypted from the format menu. Now your external drive has been formatted to be fully compatible with apple macos, and you can edit, read, and write files to it as you want. How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. Theres also the option of macos extended journaled, encrypted which is a good choice if. While this tutorial will cover the procedure for formatting your system drive, the same applies to formatting a new external drive if you bought one for storage purposes. Since most external hard drives are formatted for pcs, before the backup of your mac begins you need to format the hard drive for macos. Alternatively, you can also set the format to mac os extended journaled and the scheme to guid partition map. Jan 02, 2016 either way, youll want to format your drive accordingly. Format or erase a mac hard drive all formats explained. Recover data from corrupted external hard drive mac. The formatting decides the way the files are stored on your hard disk.
Now that you know which format to use, check out our guide on how to format your hard drive on. Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. 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. If the builtin disk came apfsformatted, dont change it to mac os extended. Read about it and found that id have to reformat it in mac os extended journaled. Best for mechanical drives, or drives used with older macos versions. In finder, you can encrypt an external drive by rightclicking on the drive name, then clicking encrypt. Now, click on the choose button to format and encrypt your drive. If you need to erase your disk before installing high sierra or later for the first time on that disk, choose mac os extended journaled. I formatted a seagate freeagent external hard drive on a system running os x lion 10. Feb 03, 2020 are you formatting the disk that came built into your mac.
Hi, i have an external usb hard drive that was initially formatted as mac os extended journaled. Erase and reformat a storage device in disk utility on mac apple. From the list of available formats, select mac os extended journaled, encrypted or. Dec 16, 2015 for the love of physics walter lewin may 16, 2011 duration. When you format an internal or external storage device, you can encrypt and protect. With exfat, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years. Before a hard drive can read or write data, it must first be formatted, or erased and reconfigured.
Feb 21, 2012 looking to share an external hard drive between a mac and pc. Format hard disk flash drive journaled mac youtube. After that the hard drive icon shown in disk utility was now grayed. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and. What is the difference between mac os extended journaled and the same format case sensitive please. A caution about formatting storage drives afps macrumors forums. How to encrypt an external drive in mac os x quickly. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. The best format for your external hard drive the hellotech blog. Encrypt and protect a storage device with a password in disk utility. If you have important data on your external drive, be sure to transfer them to a different location as this operation will erase all the files on your drive. How to password protect external hard drives on mac and. For more security, consider turning on filevault encryption when you. File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple.
Lost password on mac os extended journaled, encrypted. Is formatting a hard drive using this extension safe. I think apple limits the format of encrypted mac drives. How can i reformat my external hard drive without losing. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. This post will teach you how to format your mac s hard disk and fix common errors.
Formatting the hard drive is the only way to properly and completely remove all private data from your mac. How to use toshiba external hard drive on mac solved. Step 1 connect the encrypted external drive to your mac or use the internal encrypted volume. You have to set it up correctly before getting starting. How to recover data from formatted external hard drive on mac. Proceeding with the steps outlined below will delete all data on the selected drive. Sep 26, 2018 windows pc and mac use different filesystems.
Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. Choose the exfat file system in the list and click start. If you know youre going to use a drive on both mac and windows, you. Here comes the cure imyfone anyrecover a onestop solution to recover deleted, lost or. Now, i am thinking of using mac os extended journaled, encrypted. After the process is done, you will see that your drive is now encrypted.
Now after updating to macos mojave, this external hard drive just wont mount. When done, quit disk utility to return to the utilities window. Then restart your computer, you will find the bitlocker has been removed. Want to format a hard drive for mac and pc compatibility. Jul 19, 2017 java project tutorial make login and register form step by step using netbeans and mysql database duration. With my previous laptops pcs, ive always stored my data on an external hard drive. It was accidentally erased using disk utility and then again re formatted to hfs. Or perhaps you are setting up an external drive for backups. One final pointif you encrypt a drive, dont expect to be able to read its files on.
Get a free download of remo recover mac application and install it on your mac system. Its worth noting that starting with mac os high sierra 10. Thats often the norm because theres rarely ever a need to format your internal drive. Theres also the option of macos extended journaled, encrypted which is a good choice if you are likely to be carrying your laptop or external drive around. File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple palaikymas. Whether you are trying to backup mac to an external hard drive, wipe out any personal information and sell the computer, or even use a new operating system, you need to format the hard drive on your mac or pc. Heres how to format a drive using a mac including how to format a drive for windows and.
Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. How to fix external hard drive not mounting on mac computer. It uses full disk, xts aes 128 encryption to keep your data secure. Before a hard drive can read or write data, it must first be formatted. How to encrypt external drives in os x lion informationweek. In a format which isnt case sensitive, theyre considered to be the same. In this video, we explain how to format or erase a hard drive or usb flash drive on mac os x. When you use a hard disk drive, time machine will take a while to back up your mac. Choose either apfs or mac os extended journaled to format as a mac volume. If you have an external drive you want to use with both windows and a mac, you have to use the fat. To put in simple words, if you want to share the external hard drive between macintosh and windows pc, you need to format an external hard drive for the respective system.
Apfs apfs encrypted apfs ecrypted casesensitive mac. Lets take a look at the different types of formats, and which are best for video production. In this blog, well share a variety of methods to encrypt and decrypt a mac hard drive and how you can recover files from an encrypted drive. How to format an external disk or a flash drive for mac. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. A prompt is asking me to reformat the drive before i can use it but i know better than to do that. Mounting a mac os extended journaled, encrypted drive. But regardless of what type it is, errors can still restrict it from reading and writing data. Mac os extended journaled is the normal recomended way to format your drives, internal and external.
If you wish to change to mac os extended journaled. The ssds are fast, dont need any external power supply, and have more resistance to shock and vibrations. I always format a new drive as mac os extended journaled, immediatly and before use. To format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format. Guidelines to recover data from corrupted external hard drive on mac.
On the left hand side of disk utility youll see a list of drives. Remember, this works for any memory cards, usb and such. For pc and mac compatibility, select exfat format and master boot record scheme. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. After your drive has been successfully formatted, click ok, then continue to the next section. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. Itll format and encrypt any media the disk utility supports. External hard drives use either spinning disks or solid memory to save your files. How to encrypt an external hard drive in lion macworld. The macbook and macbook pros come with an ssd to store data and an os. Formatting an external hard drive or usb flash key is straightforward.
How secure is mac os extended journaled, encrypted. Feb 20, 2019 connect the hard drive to my mac, launch disk utility, then look for and eject the my passport hard drive. Connect your corrupted external hard disk from which you want to. To decrypt a hard drive by using finder, perform the following steps. In case you forgot to backup files before formatting the external drive. If you bought an external hard drive, it too needs to be formatted before use. I have some personal data i want to be securely encrypted. How to encrypt, decrypt mac hard drive and recover files. Mac os extended journaled is the native file system your mac uses. Ensure the drop down under file system is ntfs, then click start. How to share an external hard drive between macintosh and. How you format a mac hard drive is entirely dependent on what kind of drive you plan on formatting. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide.
I have a 500 gb older hp external hard drive, formatted as macos extend journaled on macbook pro 2014 and i have been using it to do time machine backups. How to erase a disk for mac partition a physical disk in disk utility on mac file system formats available in disk utility on mac format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac encrypt and protect a. Lost password on mac os extended journaled, encrypted drive. Connect the hard drive or usb key to the mac launch disk utility, located in applications utilities locate the drive name from the left hand side of disk utility and click on it.
Both fat32 and exfat can be used on windows pc and mac. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac. Luckily, this can be done without any complicated booting procedures all you have to do is plug it in, open disk utility while your mac is working as usual, select it in the sidebar and follow the same procedure described above in the using disk utility section. Dec 29, 2015 follow these instructions if you plan to share an external hard drive between pc and mac computers. How to format an external disk or a flash drive for mac you will be presented with a dropped down panel where you need to type a name for the volume and select the format type as mac os extended journaled and partition map scheme as guid. For most reasons to erase, you should erase the disk, which also erases all volumes on that disk. Is there any difference between these two processes. But both a mac and a windows pc can read a toshiba external hard drive formatted as exfat. How to format external ssd for mac time machine mashtips. In disk utility on your mac, format disks or volumes using apple file system apfs. Dec 16, 2018 attach the usb flash drive to your mac and locate its disk icon on your desktop. Click the erase button or tab, then complete these fields. Disk utility shows the recommended mac format by default. How to format an external drive for mac all things how.
If you want to format your external hard drive to work with mac and windows computers, you should use exfat. How to format hard drive and fix disk format errors on mac. This also allows you to restore time machine backups on windows. Use a windows pc to format your wd my passport drive first to exfat. In disk utility, you can encrypt an external drive when you format it as mac os extended journaled, encryted. I had the choice to partition it, but i didnt need to since i only save photos to it. While its convenient to purchase the hard drive that will work with your computer right out of the box, most external hard drives can also be reformatted so youre not limited to your initial choice. Your windows pc wont be able to read a toshiba drive formatted as mac os extended journaled. Encrypting an external hard disk with finder vs disk utility.
Mac os journaled is the formatting option for mac and ntfs or msdoc is the. A casesensitive format considers capitalization, so abc and abc are considered to be different names. Mac os extended was the default file system used by every mac from 1998 until 2017, when apfs replaced it. How to encrypt a usb flash drive in macos mojave macrumors. Encrypt and protect a storage device with a password in disk utility on mac. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. If your my passport drive shows up in the list go ahead and format. First, connect the drive to the mac and launch disk utility, which is under utilities. The few differences will be noted further down in the article see. How to format an external drive for mac compatibility.
Windows cant normally read mac formatted drives, and will offer to erase them instead. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. If you work solely on a mac, but need to send files to someone working on a pc, your external hard drive needs to be set up for both operating systems. When i formatted it to mac os extended journaled i was so amazed.
Both apfs and mac os extended offer an encrypted option, and if security is a concern, its a good idea to use this on external drives. You can format an external drive in os x using disk utility and terminal. Select the erase tab and choose mac os extended journaled for the format and give it a name. This is a simple procedure and is achieved the same way for all drive types and through all connections, be they usb, firewire, or thunderbolt. Feb 08, 2020 now your external drive has been formatted to be fully compatible with apple macos, and you can edit, read, and write files to it as you want. How to share an external drive between a mac and a pc. Plugged in my external hard drive today to my mac and it decided to not work. Here is how to password protect external hard drives on windows and mac. Follow onscreen prompts to choose mac os extended journaled file system and allow the disk to format. Go to disk utility and expand the external hard drive list there step 4 above. This wont encrypt your usb drive within disk utility, but it will allow you to encrypt it using the simple finder method.
Open windows explorer, right click your external drive, then click format. Oct 16, 2019 the best format for external hard drives. I am using a seagate free agent desk external drive as my time machine on a modern imac running lion. Mac os extended journaled encrypted inqui apple community. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. In the format popup menu, youll see two new disk formats available to you, in addition to the standard mac os extended journaled, mac os. To this day, it remains the default file system for mechanical and hybrid hard drives, both while installing macos and while formatting external drives. Heres how to encrypt your external media via os x 10. You can format a drive in os x using two applications. How to easily formatunlock encrypted hard drive without. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows.
Connect the external drive to the mac via usb or thunderbolt port. For more security, consider turning on filevault encryption when you start using your ssd drive. With a solidstate drive ssd, secure erase options are not available in disk utility. This format has all three features of the file systems above.
Rather than use a macformatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exfatformatted drives for moving data between macs and pcs. The tool could easily extract and recover all files from formatted or partitioned hard drives on mac systems. Fortunately disk utility, built right into macos, can help. Mar 15, 2018 rather than use a macformatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exfatformatted drives for moving data between macs and pcs.
Likely to protect you from removing something that someone else encrypted. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. The best way to do it is with a drive formatted as fat32. Rightclick the bitlocker encrypted hard drive and choose format partition. This process will completely erase all data on your external hard drive. Formatting a drive will erase all data and partitions on the disk. Though this format has some limitations, it enjoys nearly universal support.
How to format hard drive and fix disk format errors on your mac errors can damage your hard disk and prevent it from functioning properly. 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. Apr 17, 2020 similar to encrypting a hard drive, macos also makes the process of decryption easy. Use a mac with an older release of mac os to format your wd passport drive. Some people are asking for a way to format a hard drive for mac. On mac computers, use the finder app to browse and manage files on your computer and external hard drives. How to recover data from an erased external hard drive on. Enter a name for the disk or volume, such as macintosh hd.
276 820 208 942 822 1476 832 1463 1483 88 472 1334 465 330 180 466 683 1228 1456 903 229 135 543 235 300 431 174 120 462 552 1199 710 754 237 1473 873 736 1405 1290 58