Tips for Formatting a Hard Drive on Mac: Even though formatting doesn’t seem like a big deal, still it can be very helpful. So, it is important that you stay active and keep all things in mind. Here are some tips that might help you when you are about to format a Mac hard drive.
FonePaw - Solution - Eraser - Format A Hard Drive for MacOS
Some people are asking for a way to format a hard drive for Mac. 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.
But before you can do anything, you need to make it clear that the hard drive you want to wipe or format would be an external hard drive or an internal hard drive. We can easily format external hard drive for Mac. But when it comes to format internal hard drive for mac, things are getting a little more complicated. Maybe we will go through with the way to format a startup drive for Mac later. But now in this guide, we will cover the situation of formatting an external hard drive in steps.
Notice that you need to backup your importanct files on the hard drive you are going to format as the procedure would delete all of the data and bring it back to the factory settings.
Format an external hard drive for Mac
How to Format External Hard Drive for Mac
If you are trying to format Mac external hard drive, you can go over the process step by step:
Step 1. Connect your hard drive to your Mac.
Step 2. Open Finder and choose 'Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility' to launch the app on your Mac. Open office for os x snow leopards.
Step 3. Once you open the Disk Utility app, you can see all the drives on your Mac are listed on the left-hand sidebar. Just select the one you want to format and click on the 'Erase' tab.
Format an external hard drive for Mac
Step 4. Now in this interface, you will see a 'Format' option. In this drop-down box, you are allowed to choose different format.
OS X Extended (Journaled) should be selected if you are going to use the drive as a system or 'boot' drive on macOS.
Mac OS Extended should be selected if you will be using the drive as a media or 'scratch' drive on Mac.
Mac OS (FAT) is compatible with both PC and Mac platforms. However, there's a limit to transfer files within 4GB.
ExFAT is similar with Mac OS (FAT) but it can work with files as large as 16EB (exabytes)
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So if you are going to use an external drive for both your Windows PC and your Mac, you should choose the ExFAT or FAT format.
Choose format for hard drive
Step 5. Name your drive you like but it would be better to choose something specific, so that you can make things clear every time when you look at its name.
Step 6. Click on the 'Security Options' button and you are able to choose the way (fastest or more secure) to format your external disk. The fastest way will save your time but it erases the drive only by removing the header information. That is to say, you can easily restore the hard drive using a data recovery software if the files haven't been overwritten. It is not good and the format process is meaningless in some way. So maybe you can try the more secure one. It may take quite a long time, but it will erase the drive in a deeper way.
Step 7. Click on the 'Erase' button to start erasing the external hard drive or USB. Formatting a hard drive will take a while and wait for it patiently. Once the progress bar is at 100%, the job is done!
How to Recover Formatted Hard Drive on Mac
As it is mentioned above, after formatting a hard drive, all data on the hard drive will be erased. But what if you have second thought and need to recover files from the formatted drive? Is it possible to recover files from formatted drive on Mac? Yes, it is possible. But you'll need FonePaw Data Recovery, a Mac data recovery program that can recover deleted files from hard drive, SD card, USB drive even the drive has been formatted.
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Step 1. Run FonePaw Data Recovery on your Mac. Remember that you should not install the application on the formatted drive. Otherwise, some of the files could be overwritten by the application.
Step 2. When the application is open, select the files you want to retrieve from the formatted drive. Tick the formatted hard drive. And click Scan.
Step 3. The application will first quickly scan some easy-to-get files on the formatted hard drive. If you need more files. Click Deep Scan to find files that are buried deeper.
Step 4. View the results by file types or path. Is os x mavericks still available for download windows 7. Tick the files you need and click Recover. If you have deleted files that haven't been found, do not save the recovered files on the formatted drive. Instead, save them on other drive, such as your USB drive.
If you have any problem when following the steps to format hard drive for Mac, please leave us a message on the comment box below!
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Summary: Let’s figure out how to format your WD Passport on macOS & Windows. In this blog post, we will walk you through the formatting process and share instructions to format an external drive on macOS & Windows.
But before you proceed, understand that formatting carries a risk of hard drive corruption and data loss. So, in case, if you had accidentally lost your data due to drive formatting or corruption, we also recommend a data recovery software that can rescue data from your HDD. Take a free trial to evaluate the software now.
Professional Photographers and videographers have their hands laid upon various digital devices. Usually, their arsenal includes a cutting-edge Windows 10 desktop, the latest and the magnificent MacBook Pro, DSLR & SD-Cards of-course and the trusted & loved external drives such as the WD My Passport. The role of the WD My Passport drive is crucial since the individual will leverage the portable media to safely store their collection of pictures, videos, audio, and docs. But despite the best of the best device specifications; there remains one small glitch to rectify.
We know, Macs and Windows have their native file systems such as the new APFS or HFS and the NTFS. A WD My Passport formatted with Mac file system will be a dud on the Windows and vice-versa. Thankfully, MS-DOS FAT32 and ex-FAT formats have survived to date, and these are the file system to make your WD My Passport work with a Mac and a Windows PC simultaneously. In the next 5 minutes read, you will master yourself in formatting a WD My Passport safely and in a manner best suited for sharing your digital files between a macOS and Windows OS.
To format a Western Digital My Passport external hard drive in ex-FAT or FAT32 format, you can bank on built-in applications of Mac & PC. However, while doing this, there are things you have to keep in mind and follow the correct steps. Here you will get to know about the process to format your “My passport” portable drive in FAT32 and ex-FAT file system in both Windows and Mac platforms.
In Windows Platform:Old Western Digital Hard Drive
1. Connect your Western Digital My Passport hard drive to your Windows PC through the USB cable. Wait till the Windows detects the external hard drive and configure it as an expansion drive automatically.
2. Now, click the Start button and select ‘This PC’. A new Windows Explorer window opens, on the left side of the screen; you will see a list of installed drives and their drive letters.
3. Locate the icon assigned to Western Digital My Passport drive and Right-click the connected drive icon and click ‘Format’ in the pop-up menu.
4. Select the ‘File System’ from the drop-down list, which is available in the format expansion and choose either ‘ex-FAT’ or ‘FAT32’.
5. Enter a relevant name in the ‘Volume Label’ field. This name will represent your drive when you connect it with Windows Explorer or Mac and will be mentioned above the drive letter for the My Passport drive. Therefore, enter a descriptive name.
6. Now, again select a ‘Quick Format’ option, then click ‘Start’ option, wait for a few minutes to get your drive reformatted with the FAT32 file system, so that you can use it. After successful formatting, you can directly save or move files to it like any other external hard drive.
Formatting Western Digital Hard Drive For Mac Os X 10 7 5In macOS / OS X Platform
Window’s Disk Management and Mac’s Disk Utility applications are secure platforms to erase your WD My Passport easily. You don’t require any third-party software to format your WD My Passport with FAT or ex-FAT.
Caution: Avoid Formatting your WD My Passport without Backup
We can’t rule out the possibilities of human errors resulting in the accidental formatting of the WD My Passport external drive. A silly man-made mistake will permanently remove all of the contained pictures, videos, audio files, and docs instantly from the WD My Passport. Hence, fasten your seat-belts and backup your WD My Passport before erasing. If you have already joined the data loss club unwillingly, then try running D-I-Y applications to recover data from Mac and Windows.
Formatting Western Digital Hard Drive For Mac Os X 10 11
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