How to format a hard drive so it can be read on both a mac and pc. Jun 30, 2009 how do i format a 250gb freeagent portable hard drive from ntfs to fat32. How to reformat seagate portable external hard drive. How to force a hard drive to unmount for formatting in mac. But using a third party all the time for accessing a hard drive on windows is not good. Apr 21, 2020 both of fat32 and exfat are suitable for seagate drive to be used with mac and pc. 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.
There will be no space wasted by protected mac partitions. Oct 09, 2019 this wikihow teaches you how to format a seagate hard drive on a mac computer. Something that only takes a few minutes to do and is easy once you know how. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Rightclick in the unallocated space on the initialized disk and select new simple volume. If you are techy and use windows and mac computers frequently, then you might need to transfer data between mac and pc. Jul 14, 2009 reformatting seagate freeagent external hd posted in hardware, components and peripherals. Thankfully, reformatting an external drive on a mac is a relatively straightforward process. A user has to know how to convert mac formatted hard drive to windows formatted. Thankfully, reformatting an external drive on a mac is a relatively straightforward process apple even ships macs with a builtin utility to do so. Why does the seagate external hard drive not recognized on mac. To save important data on the hard drive, please backup disk beforehand.
How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. Windowsformatted hard drives have either ntfs file system of an fat32 file system. Open disk management, the hard drive manager included with all versions of windows. Windows 7 requires me to format seagate freeagent external. Basically, formatting is the process of preparing the storage devices such as hard disk drive, solidstate drive, usb flash drive, or any other for initial use. Fix seagate external hard drive not detectedrecognized. Seagate has free drivers available to download for. This thing is still unknown for many users but doesnt worry its not complex. Formatting the hard drive a vast majority of video production will be done on a mac or windows operating system, so we arent going to cover linux. How to format new or second hard drive on windows 10mac. The reason is perhaps that seagate external hard drive has been well known for a long time as one of the most reliable drives for storing data. Erase files, erase hard drive, and erase free space. Convert formatted drive from mac to windows info remo. I have a seagate freeagent external hard drive and ive been using it with a pc.
However, you need to reformat external hard drive or internal ssdhdd if it was partitioned before. In the pane on the left, under storage, click disk management. How to fix seagate external hard drive not showing up. Erasing a disk or volume permanently deletes all of its files. I cant reformat the seagate freeagent drive go, because i have important files on the drive. Like the majority of the external hard drives out on the market your seagate expansion is formatted as ntfs. Mar 18, 2020 you can try the hard drive to another computer or connect it with other usb ports. Why is external hard drive not showing up on my computer.
The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Reformatting seagate freeagent external hd hardware. But both of them cant format the hard drive which the mac os is installed on because the mac system doesnt allow other software to destroy the system. How do i format a 250gb freeagent portable hard drive from. This is great if youre using the drive across systems. If you see the drive is ntfs then youll either need to reformat the drive or use a ntfs driver. To format an external hard drive on your mac paraphrased from here. For instructions on how to format your hard drive on a mac, please reference the following links.
First well discuss why your seagate external hard drive cannot be detected by your windows pc, then well provide you with some effective solutions. Lets take a look at the different types of formats, and which are best for video production. If the drive does not appear on your desktop, run disk first aid you will find it in the utilities folder, which is inside the applications folder on your mac. Experiencing the readonly problem with another companys external hard drive on a mac, or not able to fix it with the driver suggested above. Apr 14, 2020 by this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for mac and pc without losing any data. While the external hard drive connected to the windows computer or mac, and the device did not show up. So if you are formatting a drive that has already been used, be sure to copy any files you will ever want to see again onto a computer or backup drive. As formatting will delete all the data on the hard drive, make sure that you have successfully backed up your files to another safe place before windows 10 disk format. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. You can format the external hard drive or usb drive to make it compatible with both mac and windows machines. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. Before you start formatting any hard drives, make sure youve backed up your data.
It is not rare to see people coming and asking how to format their new or second hard drive on mac or windows either for freeing up space or for making hard drives to be compatible with a new operating system. But in order for the computer and drive to talk to one another, the drive has to be formatted. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Seagate freeagent external hard drive how to use with mac. However, they are prone to be damaged or corrupted as well. The drive will now be formatted for use by windows systems. Cant add new files to your external hard drive backup. Once disk utility is open youll see the list of available drives on the left. Before using an external hard drive on a mac, you should format it using disk utility. How to format seagate drive for mac and pc quickly and securely. How to fix a read only external hard drive on a mac boxaid. Seagate freeagent external hard drive how to use with mac and pc.
Just plug it in and it should appear on your desktop. Seagate external hard drive how to set up on mac macos. Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or instore pickup. How to use seagate hard drive for both mac and windows super. Extended journaled then hit erase, this will format the drive to be used with a mac. Create a bootable install usb drive of mac os x 10.
Before formatting any hard drive, its a good idea to backup any data or files you want to save before. A lot of people including you, storing important data on seagate external hard drive instead of on your pc mac hard drive. Seagate external hard drive drivers free downloads and. This insures that you will have a compatible hard drive with. How to set up seagate external hard drive on macbook pro, mac mini, mac laptop, apple computer. How to format a hard drive for mac internal, external or. 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. Hard drive format software for mac mac disk format software. You can format a drive using the disk utility in mac. But unfortunately it bit the dust and i decided to get a pc. Formatting a hard drive for windows will be discussed in another article.
Mac osx can also do it format ms dos style however if you need it for win mac. The two hard drive formatting software for mac can help you securely format hard drive or device under mac os. Use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. As long as the drive connects to your macbook air via a connection protocol that the air supports like thunderbolt or usb 2 or usb 3 you can format the drive and use it with your mac just fine. A hard drive can be used on any type of computer pc or mac. Dec, 2007 how to reformat mac external harddrive for pc. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. Seagate freeagent desk external drive on mac mac support. Troubleshooting a readonly external hard drive other than seagate. In this video i demonstrate how to reformat an external hard drive in windows 88. However, if you want to convert ntfs to exfat to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc, 3 steps are required.
Providing that data is valuable, we suggest you try fixes first to make the disk show up in disk management, and next take one more step to recover data on the unrecognized seagate external hard drive with the help of easeus data recovery wizard. How to format a windows disk drive for a mac seagate blog. After disk management opens, which might take several seconds, look for the drive you want to format from the list at. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. How to erase and format a hard drive lifehacker australia. The seagate thunderbolt adapter driver is only needed if you are using 3tb or 4tb drives with the thunderbolt adapter and plan to change drives with other goflex adapters such as usb or firewire. How to fix a read only external hard drive on a mac. Nov, 2019 here, we will introduce you to how to format hard drive in windows 10 with windows builtin disk management tool, a partition manager, and command lines. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. How to fix seagate external hard drive not showing. If it all not get working, you can follow the next solution to fix the external hard drive not recognized on windows computer and mac, and you can recover lost data from external hard drive with recoverit data recovery. Backup plus and goflex desk thunderbolt software for mac. I can find it under device manager and disk management but thats it. Goflex desk external drive support seagate support us.
The goflex for mac limited edition ultraportable drive packs 1tb of storage into the standardized 2. Ntfs means that your seagate expansion will plug straight into a windows pc. If you use a mac, the likelihood that youll have to reformat the drive is higher. Seagate freeagent xtreme hard drive apple community. Oct, 2015 in this video i demonstrate how to reformat an external hard drive in windows 88. Select your macs hard drive in the lefthand column, to reveal more options, then select the partition button. Formatting a drive will erase all its contents, so back up the drive first if. How to format a seagate freeagent for a macbook synonym.
I was about to send these two hard drives back because the other directions i found were too complicated. The windows system uses a hard drive with a different file system than the mac systems. Use the wizard to create a partition with the ntfs or fat32 file system. Again, formatting a drive will erase it completely, so make sure you. Then, choose the disk that is beeping clicking, and click the scan button to start a scan. How to format seagate external hard drive for both mac. Choose the external hard drive and click erase button at the bottom of the screen. How to use toshiba external hard drive on mac solved. I cant add files to my seagate freeagent external hard drive.
Is there a way to reformat this external harddrive on pc. How to reformat an external drive for mac cyber yard. How to unlock and format an external hard drive for your mac. Before you get deep, it is important that you understand what is drive formatting. Why need to format external hard drive for mac and pc. The entire external hard drive is now being scanned. Here is a stepbystep guide for you to fix seagate external hard drive not showing up in my computer in windows 10. Then, you can share external hard drive between mac and 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.
To put it simply, if you want to share external hard drive between mac and pc, you need to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. Your macbook can not read or write to a ntfs drive, so you will need to reformat it to a mac compatible file system. This this tutorial should work just the same on windows 7 and windows 10. This driver provides write access for seagate external drives in mac os without having to reformat. How you format a mac hard drive is entirely dependent on what kind of drive you plan on formatting. How to reformat mac external harddrive for pc march 2014. I can reformat it to use on mac, but disk utility wont recognize it. Choose erase hard drive option, and you should see a list of the drives connected to your pc mac including the external hard drive you want to reformat. I have been using seagate freeagent as my external harddrive for over a month now but recently i am unable to access it for windows 7 is asking me to format it in order to use it. Before continuing, make sure that you have a backup of any files that you want to keep. To make it clear, we recommend you stay away from ntfs if youre looking to use your external hard drive on a mac. I searched high and low over the web and should have looked it up here in the apple forum first. Fix seagate external hard drive not recognizeddetected on mac. Run mac os x on an appletv with an external hard drive how to.
In the screenshot below, the drive is formatted with the exfat file system. No matter what motivation you have, the question, how to reformat a hard dr ive, is much more important now. How to open a seagate freeagent hard drive in order to make some kind of attempt at destroying the potentially incriminating data contained therein while ive really quite enjoyed switching to the mac, the move has definitely led to some serious wastage of time not only in setting up and acclimating to the new system, but also in having to. Some people are asking for a way to format a hard drive for mac. In this guide i will show you how you can properly format reformat a hard drive for mac os. Seagate hard drives, such as portable hard drives, external hard drives, hard drives for mac, etc. Apr 21, 2009 seagate freeagent desk external drive on mac. Ive been told that it doesnt work with the windows os if i want to use it to reformat this external hdd, but my sister and i use different computers me a pc, and she a mac and ive been told that fat32 is the only one that can be used by both our computers.
How to reformat my external hard drive for windows 10. Your exfatformatted drive or partition can now be used for both windows and mac. Feb 24, 2014 whether youre selling your computer, trying a new operating system or setting up an external drive for backups, sometimes you need to completely erase and format a hard drive. Formatting an external hard drive will delete any information on the device, likewise reformatting your system will essentially bring your mac back to a clean factory state, thus removing all information youve stored on it. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Apart from windows and mac, fat32 is compatible with various electronic devices like xbox one, ps3 and ps4, etc. Then, should you format the hard drive to fat32 or exfat file system. Reasonswhy does a seagate external hard drive become undetectable. How to format your hard drive seagate support asean. Hard drives in seagates freeagent line except for the go pro for mac and the go for mac ship with ntfs, a file system designed for windows. I too just bought a seagate free agent xtreme to be used as a back up for all my movies and had issues with firewire and formatting as mac os extended. Hard drive to go between mac and pc without deleting anythin. If you have more than one partition, on the hard drive, you may wish to remove these and return the hard drive to a single partition, first. Opening disk management can be done a number of ways.
How to format a hard drive to work on mac and pc youtube. Hard drives in seagates freeagent line except for the go pro for mac and. Seagate external hard drive how to set up on mac youtube. This is the perfect solution for primarily mac computer users who still regularly utilize a pc without any program limitation or file size restrictions. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Dont worry, the next guide we will show you the best solution to fix the hard drive not recognized problem. Note that using a drive frequently between windows and mac could increase the chances of file corruption, so make. Reformat the disk to fat32, which as suggested by michael sturm is the lowest common denominator in. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. Click the submit query button to search for a firmware update for your hard drive.
This lets you add write access to seagate drives on macos without having to reformat. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. If you want to use a different file system on your usb drive, youll need to format it. Seagate expansion on mac, want it but can i use on my mac.
Dec 29, 2015 your exfatformatted drive or partition can now be used for both windows and mac. How to install toshiba external hard drive on mac your first step to using your toshiba external drive on your mac is to plug your toshiba drive in. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Note that using a drive frequently between windows and mac could increase the. Before you can use it though, you need to properly format or reformat a hard drive so that it will become compatible or readable with the operating system that you are using. 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.
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