Now, from the left column select 1 TB WD My Passport (or whatever your hard drive name is), and click on the Erase tab. From here, in Format, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled), give it a name.
Yo just got a new external hard drive and want to use it on your Mac. However, the Mac OS does not allow you to write data to the drive. You may wonder how to reformat an external hard drive on Mac. Follow the tutorial below, you'll get everything covered.
Bonus: How to Recover Data from Formatted External Hard Drive on Mac
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.
Before you begin formatting the drive, there are a few things to do. The most important, you should decide which format to use.
There are a few file formats you can use, but it depends on the purpose you want to use the drive for. Which one is right for your circumstance? We'll describe them here, you'll know your choice after reading the details.
APFS: This is the default file system in Macs with High Sierra. Descargar adobe premiere para mac. It is efficient and reliable. However, it won't be readable and usable on machines that are not running Mac High Sierra, and Windows or Linux PCs. What's more, it is compatible with SSD and flash storage devices only.
Mac OS Extended (Journaled/HFS+): If you didn't update your Mac OS to High Sierra, the default file system on your Mac shoule be Mac OS Extended. Mac OS Extended (encrypted) would be an ideal option if you probably carry your laptop or external drive here and there. You can encrypt it so that no one can access the contents on your drive.
MS-DOS FAT (aka FAT32): In addition to Mac, it can also be written and read by Linux and Windows. It enables you to regularly share files with your friends who own a PC. Nevertheless, this older file system is limited to no more than 4GB and there might be security issue and disk errors.
ExFAT: It is similar to ExFAT which can be read by both Windows and Mac, but it can store more than 4GB files.
NTFS: As the default file system in Windows, it can only read by Mac OS, writing to it is not available. Luckily, there are third-party tools to help you do so.
Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another.
All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your Mac. Disk utility - the MacOS utility application can help you with this. Just follow these steps below:
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.
In case you forgot to backup files before formatting the external drive. Here comes the cure - iMyFone AnyRecover - a one-stop solution to recover deleted, lost or formatted files from Mac.
Follow these simple steps using AnyRecover to get your files back!
First, download and install AnyRecover, following on-screen prompts to accomplish the task.
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1. After loading AnyRecover, plug your external hard drive into your Mac directly or via USB.
2. Next select the drive under 'External Removable Devices' tab, click 'Start' to begin scanning lost files on the drive.
1. AnyRecover takes a moment to scan your drive. Once done, it will list out all scanning results by file type.
2. Double click a single file to preview it before recovery.
3. Select the files and press Recover to get them back.
What if my files were not found? Fear not. We can take this a step further. Enable 'Deep Scan' to try one more time, follow the steps above just as before to locate and recover your files.
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!
Download WD Quick Formatter Alternative to Format External Hard Drive
WD Quick Formatter, also called WD advanced format utility is a tool that allows you to reformat WD external hard drive to NTFS, FAT32, etc in Windows 10/8/7 or other Windows versions. Akai eie pro mac. It is usually used to repair corrupted hard disk when it is unrecognized or inaccessible, fix format issues when Windows was unable to complete the format, change file system, or optimize the performance of the drive. The WD Quick Formatter is ONLY for external drives. Once the WD Quick Formatter is finished reformatting the drive, the drive will only have one partition. This is necessary in order to optimize the performance of the drive.
WD Quick Formatter is available on the Western Digital official website. You can use it to repair a corrupted external hard disk. The typical symptoms - the power LED is on but the drive is not accessible. Meanwhile, you'll receive error messages like:
The most effortless way is to format the external hard drive if you want to get access to the drive. Follow the steps below to format the external hard drives with WD Quick Formatter. https://bestsup510.weebly.com/cisdem-document-reader-4-2-1-download-free.html.
Step 1. Connect WD external hard drive to your Windows PC. Download and run the WD Quick Formatter.
Step 2. How to run an excel file in python for mac. In the welcome screen, click 'Continue' to move to the next screen.
Step 3. In the End User License Agreement page, click 'Accept'.
Step 4. Next, the WD Quick Formatter tool will scan for WD external drives to be formatted.
If the drive is to be used with a computer running Windows system like XP, then select XP Compatible. It is the same case with Windows 10/8/7. And if the drive is not to be used with Windows OS, then select Factory Default. Once this selection is made, click on the drop-down menu to view and/or select different external drives from the list, should there be additional drives connected to the system. When ready, click 'Format Drive'.
Step 5. Once the Format is completed, click the 'Format Another Drive' button to select another WD external drive to format, or click the 'Exit' button to exit the program.
Also read:How to Format WD My Passport for Mac and PC
However, WD Quick Formatter might fail to format WD external hard drive due to some errors. When it happens, a reliable external hard drive formatter alternative - EaseUS free partition tool is needed. Many users have used this tool to complete the disk formatting job in Windows 10/8/7 while WD external drive format failed with the WD Quick Formatter tool.
Step 1: Launch EaseUS Partition Master, right-click the partition on your external hard drive/USB/SD card which you want to format and choose the 'Format' option.
Step 2: Assign a new partition label, file system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3), and cluster size to the selected partition, then click 'OK'.
Step 3: In the Warning window, click 'OK' to continue.
Step 4: Click the 'Execute Operation' button in the top-left corner to review the changes, then click 'Apply' to start formatting your external hard drive/USB/SD card.
You can always format the wanted drive with WD Quick Formatter. If WD Quick Formatter failed in formatting external drive, try WD Quick Formatter alternative - EaseUS Partition Master. You can easily format your HDD, SSD, SD card, or USB drive for free. You can learn more in the table below.
Comparison | EaseUS Partition Master | WD Quick Formatter |
---|---|---|
Supported Device | HDD, SSD, external hard drive, USB, SD card, etc | Only external hard drive |
Supported Operating Systems | Windows XP - Windows 10 | macOS 10.5-10.9 &Windows XP/2000 |
Interface | New and user-friendly | old-fashioned |
Easiness | Very easy | A little bit hard |
Other features | Partition a hard drive, migrate OS, wipe data, clone a hard drive | / |
If you have other questions about the Western Digital format tool, you can read the questions and answers below.
Where to find the mac address for alexa. Your firmware version can be found by going to the device's web interface and looking for the Firmware section.
Step 1. Connect WD My Passport to your Mac.
Step 2. Once that's done, double left-click on the Mac HD, the internal Mac hard drive visible on the top-right corner of the desktop screen.Select 'Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility'.
Step 3. Select your WD My Passport on the sidebar, choose 'Erase'.
Step 4. Mac external hard drive usb 3 0. Rename the drive, select the 'Volume Format' drop-down list and choose 'MS-DOS (FAT)' or 'ex-FAT File System'. Then click 'Erase'.
Step 1. Open Windows File Explorer, locate and right-click on WD My Passport that you need to format, select 'Format'.
Step 2. Rename the drive, reset its file system to FAT32 or exFAT.
Step 3. Click 'Start' to begin the formatting.
NTFS is ideal for internal drives, while exFAT is generally ideal for flash drives. Both of them have no realistic file-size or partition size limits. If storage devices are not compatible with the NTFS file system and you don't want to limited by FAT32, you can choose the exFAT file system.