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So, you just bought an external hard drive or a portable SSD and wanted to use it on your Mac. But somehow, macOS doesn’t allow you to write data to the drive.
- In-depth reviews of the 5 best external hard drives for MacBook Pro. Portable and desktop models. Performance and portability. Best value to price ratio and a preference for SSD chipsets with analog and digital protections.
- Hard drives: they are one of the most important pieces of hardware in your computer, and also the source of most problems you will encounter. The hard drive is where all the data on your computer is stored, so when it stops working it can be a bit scary. In this tutorial, I will go over how a hard.
That’s all because it’s been initialized with Windows NT File System (NTFS), which is primarily for PCs. Apple Mac machines support a different file system.
In this post, I’m going to show you how to format your external drive for a Mac compatible file system i.e. Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Just follow this easy step-by-step guide and you’re all set.
Important note: If you have useful files stored on the external drive, be sure to copy or transfer them to another safe place prior to formatting. The operation will erase all data and your files will be gone for good. You could use a recovery program like Data Rescue to retrieve them, but the odds of recovery vary.
Pro tip: If your external drive has a large volume, like mine – a 2TB Seagate Expansion. I highly recommend you also create multiple partitions. I’ll also show you how to do that below.
Most External Hard Drives Are Initiated with NTFS
During the last several years, I’ve used several removable drives, including a 500GB WD My Passport, 32GB Lexar flash drive, and a few others.
Three weeks ago, I bought a brand new 2TB Seagate Expansion to backup my MacBook Pro before I updated to the latest macOS, 10.13 High Sierra (also see those High Sierra issues I encountered).
When I connected the Seagate to my Mac, the drive icon showed up like this.
When I opened it, the default content was all there. Since I wanted to use it on Mac, I clicked the blue logo with the text “Start_Here-Mac”.
It brought me to a webpage on Seagate’s site, where it clearly indicated the drive was initially set up to work with a Windows PC. If I wanted to use it with Mac OS or Time Machine backup (which is my intent), I’ll need to format the drive for my Mac.
I then right-clicked the external drive icon on Mac desktop > Get Info. It showed this format:
Format: Windows NT File System (NTFS)
What is NTFS? I’m not going to explain here; you can read more on Wikipedia. The problem is that on macOS, you can’t work with files saved on an NTFS drive unless you use a paid app Paragon NTFS for Mac.
How to Format an External Drive to Work with Mac (from NTFS to Mac OS Extended)?
Note: The tutorial and screenshots below are based on macOS Sierra 10.12.5. They might be different if your Mac has a different version.
Step 1: Open Disk Utility.
The quickest way to do this is a simple Spotlight search (click the search icon on the upper right corner), or go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Step 2: Highlight your external drive and click “Erase”.
Make sure your drive is connected. It should show up on the left panel under “External”. Select that disk and click the “Erase” button, the one highlighted in red in the screenshot below.
Step 3: Select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” in Format.
A new window will pop up asking which file system you’d like to format the external drive to. By default, it’s the Windows NT File System (NTFS). Select the one shown below.
Pro tip: If you want to use the external drive for both Mac and PC, you can also select “ExFAT”. Learn more about the differences between these file systems from this thread.
By the way, you can also rename your external drive.
Step 4: Wait until the erasing process is complete.
For me, it took less than a minute to format my 2TB Seagate Expansion.
You can also check to see if the format was successful. Right-click on the icon for your external drive on Mac desktop, then select “Get Info”. Under “Format”, you should see text like this:
Congratulations! 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 Partition an External Hard Drive on Mac
If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive (in fact, you should for better file organization), here’s a step-by-step guide:
Step 1: Highlight your drive and click “Partition” in Disk Utility.
Open the Disk Utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Make sure you select the disk icon right under “External”. If you select the one below it, the Partition option will be greyed out and become unclickable.
Step 2: Add partitions and allocate volume for each one.
After clicking “Partition”, you’ll see this window. Located on the left is a big blue circle with the name of your external drive together with its volume size. What you need to do next is click the add “+” button to increase the number of partitions on your external disk. Then allocate the desired volume to each partition. You can do that by clicking the small white circle and dragging it around.
After that, you can rename each partition and define a file system for it.
Step 3: Confirm your operation.
Once you hit “Apply”, a new window pops up asking for your confirmation. Take a few seconds to read the text description to make sure it reflects what you intend to do, then click the “Partition” button to continue.
Step 4: Wait until it says “Operation successful.”
To check whether the operation is really successful, go to your Mac desktop. You should see multiple disk icons show up. I chose to create two partitions on my Seagate Expansion — one for backup, the other for personal use. You can find more info in this post: How to Backup Mac to an External Hard Drive.
That wraps up this tutorial article. I hope you find it helpful. As always, let me know if you have any issues during the formatting or partitioning process.
Have you ever wondered how to reformat an external hard drive for MAC, partition it and make it ready to use? How about recovering a drive you've lost? All your work, files and photos gone poof! Well, after some research, it seems that AnyRecover for Mac is your best bet! No need to worry. We've got the steps right here.
How to Reformat an External Hard Drive for MAC?
Bonus: Recovering Data from a Reformatted External Hard Drive
Reformatting an external hard drive for use with MAC OSX is not as difficult as it might seem. In a few simple steps you are ready to go and can save your back-up files to the external drive, keeping your information safe and giving you peace of mind. Keep in mind that a MAC can generally read other file formats, but for the best performance and to create a bootable disk, formatting exclusively for MAC is required.
Reformatting an External Hard Drive for MAC
Follow these steps to ensure you have a proper space to enjoy your files for a long time to come.
Step 1. Connect the external drive or the USB drive to the MAC.
Step 2. Start the Disk Utility, located under Applications > Utilities.
Step 3. Find the name of the drive in the left side of the Utilities window and select it. And click Erase button.
Step 4. Follow on-screen prompts to choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system and allow the disk to format.
Downloading messages for mac. Messages is iMessage for Mac - Apple's replacement for iChat in OS X 10.8. Firstly, note that if you install Messages, it replaces iChat although Apple has assured that iChat services will continue to work. In a further move towards iOS, Messages provides better integration with Messages on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch running iOS 5.
Formatting a drive erases all information and all partitions on the disk, leaving it ready for you to save and store information on.
Creating Partitions on a MAC Drive
Partitioning your disk is a good idea when you have a need to run two operating systems at once on the same MAC. While not common for everyday users, it is more common for business users that have multiple programs across multiple platforms. This makes the switch between each easier.
Creating partitions on your MAC compatible drive is just as easy. Return to Disk Utility to begin the process: Finder>Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility>Select your Drive on the Left>Partition Tab
1. Once at the proper window, select the Partition Tab then click + to adjust the size of the partition.
2. Name the partition.
3. Click Apply.
Bonus: How to Recover Data from a Reformatted External Hard Drive?
Let's just say you've dotted all your work and been as careful as a church mouse on Sunday, but there was some sort of cosmic problem that created disk failure. Now what? In fact, it's very simple. AnyRecover can get your files back fast. When it comes to deleted files; that's exactly what you want.
Follow these simple steps using AnyRecover to get your files back!
Get Ready!
First, download and install AnyRecover, following on screen prompts to accomplish the task.
Load AnyRecover and choose one of the six available options for data recovery, in this case we are choosing to recover data from an External, formatted and partitioned hard drive (External Device Recovery).
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Get Set!
1. Plug your external hard drive into your computer directly or via USB.
2. Next select the file type which you want to recover. Your choices are: photo, audio, video, document, archive or others. Select one and continue.
Go!
1. AnyRecover takes a moment to scan your disk and search for the specified file type to recover.
2. Press the Recover tab to see a list of file name by type of the recoverable files.
3. Select the files to recover and press Recover.
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What If?
What if my files were not found? Fear not. We can take this a step further. Instead of External Device Recovery, this time let's go back to Get Ready! And select All Around Recovery. All Around Recovery has a deeper scanning mode than External Recovery. Follow the steps above just as before to locate and recover your files.
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It is plain to see that AnyRecover for Mac is a tool worthy of top shelf treatment in your arsenal of items that are used to defend, recover and keep your system up and running. Don't get caught without the file you need for that meeting or stumbling looking for baby photos that were stored on disk and suddenly 'hid' from your view. Allow AnyRecover to find and recover your lost files. AnyRecover is easy to use but provides sophisticated results that mean you know what you're doing!