I get this question a lot – I have an external hard drive that is NTFS formatted (Windows format), and I want to reformat it for my Mac (HFS).
Today I bought a 3TB My Book external hard drive. The only reason I need this is to move my 2,000+ pictures and 100+ videos off my Mac and keep them safe. These pictures and videos are filling up my memory and I can't seem to do much else with the whole 10GB I have free. Setting up and backing up My Book with Time Machine seemed to be a breeze and I can see all of the items on it that I need to.
Honestly, I didn't want to back up my whole computer, I didn't need to. All I need off the Mac is the pictures and videos and I must be able to move them safely to another computer, if I want to. So here's my problem, before I even attempted to clean off all the pictures and videos from my Mac, I wanted to make sure I could see them on the drive from my husbands Lenovo laptop which runs on Windows 8. The device is recognized when plugged in but in no way can he open the external hard drive to see any pictures or videos, or anything for that matter. At this point, I'm very frustrated, I don't have enough money to spend an arm and a leg on hard drive.
But obviously, you get what you pay for. Is there any drive (I want something that's at least 2TB for future use) that will be able to transfer my pictures and videos from my Mac to a Windows computer, and vice versa? Is there any way that I can get this My Book to work with Windows 8 now that I've used it for my Mac?
If not, it's going back ASAP. Yes, you can ignore some of the responses here. While we may not agree with what you want to do, here is the solution to your question. We are going to reformat your new EXT so both Mac and Win machines will be able to use it. Connect the drive to your Mac, open disk utility Go to the partiton tab and select '1'. Format should be ExFAT - and in options select MBR Format the drive Copy your pictures, videos, etc back onto the drive. Connect it to your Win machine and now you should be able to use this drive there, too.
If you used Time Machine to back the photos and videos to the external and you now delete them from the Mac then Time Machine can delete them from the backup. A backup is not the way to save files to an external disk drive No the disk with the Time Machine backup should be formatted for a Mac and the PC will not be able to use it What you really need is to an external disk that you copy the files to for storage Then another disk for backup Depending on how your photos and video are stored and managed on your Mac it may be possible for the storage disk drive to be formatted so that it can be accessed by both the Mac and PC. Personally I usually find those solutions to be less then ideal for either comupter so I suggest that you don't do that. Windows does not acknowledge the existence of ANY other computer systems.
It does not read any file Systems but its own. Using Windows as the arbiter of whether these files were copied corrctly makes no sense. If you want to expand the space you use on your MacBook Pro, think of an External drive as an Extension drive, that is sometimes connected and in use, and sometimes not. You can drag and drop files there, and Mac OS X can see them edit them, and even make Backup copies of them using Time Machine. And you can disconnect that drive and leave it off for a week, then re-connect it next week and use it as if it were part of your MacBook. But maybe you should have a more modest drive for an extension drive, and use that big 3TB as your Time Machine drive.
Huge storage, low cost, high quality, very small and portable. BEST FOR THE COST, Toshiba 'tiny giant' 15mm thick 2TB drive (have several of them, lots of storage in tiny package) $100 best options for the price, and high quality HD: Quality 1TB drives are $50 per TB on 3.5' or $65 per TB on 2.5' Perfect 1TB for $68 Nice 500gig for $50. Ultraslim perfect for use with a notebook.This one is the BEST portable external HD available that money can buy: HGST Touro Mobile 1TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive $88 Most storage experts agree on the Hitachi 2.5' Hitachi is the winner in hard drive reliability survey: Hitachi manufacturers the safest and most reliable hard drives, according to the Storelab study.
Of the hundreds of Hitachi hard drives received, not a single one had failed due to manufacturing or design errors. Adding the highest average lifespans and the best relationship between failures and market share, Hitachi can be regarded as the winner.
It was the only option given upon starting the external drive You made a choice, and it was the wrong choice. The correct choice is IGNORE. Then when the system is fully operational, Launch Disk Utility. Erase the drive. Make sure it has GUID partition Map. Partition it to one partition, Mac OS Extended (journaled).
When completed, Quit Disk Utility. A new blank drive should appear on your desktop (unless you have that option turned off in Finder preferences). Make a new Folder. Drag whatever you please into it. Yes, you can ignore some of the responses here. While we may not agree with what you want to do, here is the solution to your question. We are going to reformat your new EXT so both Mac and Win machines will be able to use it.
Connect the drive to your Mac, open disk utility Go to the partiton tab and select '1'. Format should be ExFAT - and in options select MBR Format the drive Copy your pictures, videos, etc back onto the drive. Connect it to your Win machine and now you should be able to use this drive there, too.
Thank you so much! Especially in being so kind and offering quick and efficient advice. I got my Mac back in September and still don't know much about it. Switching operating systems has been a bit confusing. I had attempted to drop all of my pictures on to a 32GB flash drive and could never get more that 20 pictures on it, my husband picked up a new one last night and we were able to drop the picture folder from the external drive onto the flash drive and then copy them onto his Lenovo.
I really just wanted my pictures off my Mac and on a device that could move them from computer to computer if need be. Will be doing the same with videos and keeping the My Book to back up my Mac. Again, thank you! And if I ever feel the need to reformat My Book, I'll just refer back to your post. Apple Footer. This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only. Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the information provided; every potential issue may involve several factors not detailed in the conversations captured in an electronic forum and Apple can therefore provide no guarantee as to the efficacy of any proposed solutions on the community forums.
Apple disclaims any and all liability for the acts, omissions and conduct of any third parties in connection with or related to your use of the site. All postings and use of the content on this site are subject to the.
To use the same external hard disk on a Windows computer and a macOS you need to choose the right file system. Follow our step by step guide. If you like to bring your favorite music or the photos and videos you are fond of with you, but you prefer not to leave these files on the internal memory of your smartphone so as not to take up precious space, most likely use at least one USB stick. The same is true if you have the habit of bringing your work (and files) home.
If you bring lots of files, music, videos and photos with you, then you probably need an e But if you have a PC at home and work at a Mac (or vice versa), how do you do it? And if the photos, videos or files, you have to share them with those who use MacOS while you have Windows (or, again, vice versa) how to use the same external hard drive or USB stick?
As you know (or how you will have noticed), in fact, a hard disk or a stick used with Windows is not recognized or read by the Mac (and vice versa). Fortunately, it is a less serious problem than it seems: being able to use an external hard drive on Windows and macOS is simpler than imagined.
Guilt of the File System One of the many incompatibilities between Mac and Windows comes from the different file systems used: APFS or HFS Plus on Mac, FAT32, ExFAT or NTFS on Windows. If we talk about recent computers, it is almost certain that the systems used are APFS and NTFS.
A disk formatted with APFS can neither be read nor written by Windows while an NTFS disk can neither be read nor written by a Mac. The old FAT32 file system and the most recent ExFAT (which is an extended version: Extended FAT) can be read and written by both operating systems, so if the same external hard drive or USB stick (but also an SD card) must be used on both Windows and Mac a first solution is to choose one of these two file system to format them. Which one to choose between FAT32 and ExFAT However, these two standards have technical limitations to consider.
With FAT32 the maximum size of a file cannot exceed 4 GB, you cannot create partitions larger than 32 GB and each folder can contain a maximum of one thousand files. ExFAT does not have these limits, but compared to NTFS or APFS it does not have some useful features to reinforce data security like “journaling”, a system that keeps track of changes made to individual files. To exchange files between Mac and PC via a USB flash drive, or an SD card, therefore, FAT32 can be a good choice only if its technical limits are not exceeded.
Otherwise, the best choice is to format the media with ExFAT. To exchange data with an external HD, however, almost always the best choice is to format it with ExFAT. How to create a hard disk for use with Windows and Mac Whatever your choice, both Windows and MacOS have integrated the necessary tools to format correctly, and with the file system you have chosen, your hard drive, your key or the memory card. In the case of Windows, we are talking about the tool “Disk Management “, while on macOS it is called “Disk Utility”. In both cases, however, always remember that the formatting of the disc will permanently delete all the data it contains and then it must be done before uploading the files, photos, and videos on the disk itself and not after. How to format your external Drive in Mac?
Connect the hard drive to your Mac 2. Open disk utility 3.
Select the drive you want to format. If you have no plan to use the drive for Time Machine, skip steps 5 to 11 below and continue with step 12. Now give a descriptive name to your drive and leave the default settings: OS X Extended format and GUID partition map. These will format the drive in OS X’s HFS+ file type so it will be compatible with Time Machine. Press the Erase button and OS X will format the drive. With the drive selected in Disk Utility, press the Partition button. Now enter the amount of disk space you want to set aside for Time Machine.
Select the new untitled partition so you can format it as exFAT for use with both Mac and Windows. Give a name to the partition you just have created and select exFAT for the format. Click Erase to finish. You can now use your exFAT-formatted partition on both Windows and Mac. How to Format your External Drive in Windows? Connect the drive to your PC with Windows OS.
Now open the Disk Management tool. Just type “disk format” or “disk management” in the search option or you can go to Control Panel Administrative Tools Create and format hard disk partitions.
Right-click on the external drive’s partition or unallocated space that you want to format and choose the New Simple Volume option. Follow the wizard to choose a volume size. Assign a drive letter. Choose exFAT as the file system in the Format Partition screen. Give the volume a new name. Click Finish.
Windows will format the drive as exFAT and you’ll be able to use the drive on both Windows and Mac.