Rightclick the disk that says offline, then select initialize disk select the partition layout. For example, in the screenshot below, the macformatted drive is disk 2. In the disk utility app on your mac, choose view show all devices. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac.
In this tutorial we look at formatting disks via the gui app called disk utility and its equivalent command line tool diskutil. Now enter the volume label as you need and change the file system for exfat and click ok. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Once youre familiar with it, youll find that the command is often more powerful and faster than disk utility, with more features to boot. Once you type the above command format disk name correctly, press the enter key. To go to command prompt type run in search box on taskbar and press enter type cmd and press enter. How to format usb drive or external hard drive on mac recoverit. Use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, flash drive, or other storage device for mac. Type clean and press enter to erase all the data on the drive. Im trying to format an external ssd 256gb hd that used to be the main disk in a. In the command, make sure to replace disk number for the correct number that represents the drive youre trying to format. In such cases you can format removable disk from command prompt. Enter a name for the disk or volume, such as macintosh hd.
How to erase and format external disks on mac 1 open disk utility from the dock, launchpad, spotlight or the applicationsutilities folder. Now right click on the external drive and click on format option doublecheck the drive name and capacity to make sure you are going to format the right drive. Most users use disk utility to erase a disk or hard drive. Also you can enter a name for the drive under volume label. How to erase or format a mac hard drive via command line duration.
Diskpart format command that runs on command prompt is used for formatting internal and external storage mediums of hard drives. Learn how to format usb flash drive using cmd in windows 10, 8 and 7. My macbook pros ssd spilt into 4 partitions and i couldnt figure out to merge them. How to repair a corrupted hard drive and fix my storage disk. Follow these easy steps to format a hard drive in windows 10, windows 8, windows 7, windows vista, or windows xp.
Type the commands below one at a time into the command prompt, and press enter after each command. How to format a usb external disk for mac osx using disk utility. In this windows 10 guide, well walk you through the steps to use the diskpart command tool to clean and format a hard drive to fix data corruption and other disk problems. Save any files you need to another volume before formatting. How to erase or format a mac hard drive via command line. Just like disk utility, you can use the command to format disks, erase drives and more. How to format an external drive in os x make tech easier. If you have a problem with your mac and need to reinstal the operating system you should be able to simply reinstall macos or mac os x via the recovery partition.
In disk utility on your mac, you can format an external disk for a windows computer. You can format an external drive in os x using disk utility and terminal. Today we would be taking a look at how to format drives with command line on macos. How to format external hard drive for pc, mac and linux. First, figure out which the device identifier of the disk you want to format.
Next, open a command prompt window as administrator. There are several switches that you can add to the end of the format command to modify what happens. This example selects the flash drive listed as disk number 1. For apple mac users, there are two ways to format usb flash drive to fat32, including disk utility and terminal command line. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac. If you are having a hard time using the command line, try the disk utility app, which is simpler and uses the gui. Format external driveusb exfat in windows 10 in simple steps. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. Novice users can eject a disk through the finder, or plug it into usb and mount it. All external usb disks can be formatted to work on mac osx, but not always straight out of the box. Erasing a disk or volume permanently deletes all of its files. Formatting a disk or volume erases all the files on it.
Steps to format removable disk from command prompt. How to erase a disk from command line in mac os x osxdaily. Since you had inserted your external drive, hence it will pop up at the top right of your screen. Here, were looking for an external usb drive of 16gb in size. Step 1 open finder, applications, then go to utilities and disk utility step 2 follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with time machine on your mac system part 3. How to format any removable media using command prompt. Assuming you are taking about the boot drive, then im not sure you can, as you need to software on the boot drive to format the boot drive.
Open an elevated command prompt or command prompt at boot. Disk utility can erase disks, add volumes, check disks for errors, and more. On the formatting window, select quick format option, choose file system format, and click start. How to format a drive with the apfs file system on macos.
For example, in the screenshot below, the mac formatted drive is disk 2. How to use diskpart to clean and format drive not working. Use the apple terminal application on computers running mac os x how to. To format a disk using apples disk utility, simply follow the steps below. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Format your hard drive using diskpart and command prompt.
If your mac drive has an efi partition, follow the steps to format it. There is no requirement to use the command line for anything at all on the mac. The command is available in all windows operating systems like windows 10, 8 7, vista, xp and in other older versions too. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. You can specify the partition label at next prompt if you want to. I as this is the command name which will be used to format that disk via command prompt. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 on mac os xmacos.
First of all, i can access file on only a few removable devices, 1 usb, a sd card, and my iphone. Format removable disk from command prompt tech knol. Now, you have to create a new partition on the drive. The same procedure applies to usb stick and external hdd. But some mac users might need to erase them from the command line on mac os. Locate your drive partition which has mac format file system. Open disk management, the hard drive manager included with all versions of windows. How to format drives with terminal on a mac youtube. Force an external mac drive to mount via command line. My computers performance has been slowing down noticeably, it is 3 years old and i am struggling with it. In the sidebar, select the disk you want to format to use with.
Select that drive you want to format by first choosing the ntfs 3g format. In windows 10, for example, type cmd in the search box, you can get the best match called command prompt. To do this, open a terminal window and run the following command. Heres how to format a drive if you are planning to use it with a mac. How to format an external disk or a flash drive for mac. You can use it to deal with unlocked files means the files that are not currently in use. Gpt for hard drives with a capacity larger than 2 tb mbr for hard drives with a capacity of less than 2 tb rightclick the space that says unallocated, select new simple volume, and then follow the onscreen prompts select the format of the drive volume with the following settings. Type select disk x where x is the number of the disk you want to format. Once disk utility is open youll see the list of available drives on the left. If you are having trouble with the disk utility app for erasing or formatting a drive, you can try using the command line in terminal to erase or.
Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Click on the erase option from the four options available in the main window. Here are the following most common reasons why would you like to format an external disk or a flash drive for mac under mac os extended journaled. How to format a startup drive for a mac if you want to format a drive that will be used as your mac s startup disk, the procedure is a little different from formatting it for use as a secondary. You can view the current file system of the usb drive. If youre erasing your startup disk, you might be prompted to enter your apple id. How to force a hard drive to unmount for formatting in mac. In our example, we have fat32 file system which is compatible on windows. Formatting a disk to msdos fat32 from the command line in mac os x. How to format a hard drive using the command prompt tom. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Still with the external disk selected in disk utility go to the erase tab, select mac os extended journaled from the format dropdown, choose to name the disk and then click erase. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. The instructions below are for windows 10, but other versions of windows from windows 7 and up can also format an external drive as exfat for use with mac as well.
These processes will work for both internal and external hard driveseven usb. How to use the format command to write zeros to a hard drive. How to format a usb flash drive on windows 10 windows. Go to device management window as explained in the above section. A system repair disc can be created from any working windows 7 computer and can then be used to write zeros to any drive using the included format command, including the primary drive, no matter what windows operating system is on the computer.
By using the command prompt, you can format any usb flash drive, pen drive or memory stick that is write protected, corrupted, damaged, unreadable, unrecognized by pc and mobile. Or if you mac supports it, a network boot from apple servers over the internet, and use disk utility. You need to erase and format the usb to be compatible with your mac. My removable diskusb does not show up in my computer i.
Windows snapin formatting tools are helpful in formatting exfat on windows 10. However, apples documentation notes that you can use the diskutil command to format a partition or disk image as apfs. You could most likely boot from the recovery partition and use disk utility to reformat the drive. System prompts formatting removes all data and asks confirmation for the action. If youre not comfortable with the command line, dont use it. Unfortunately, disk utility in macos high sierra doesnt make that option easy to find. How to create a bootable macos catalina installer drive put the macos catalina installer on an external usb thumb drive or hard drive and use it to install the operating system on a mac. How to create a bootable macos catalina installer drive. I have numerous external hard drives that were formatted in exfat under windows xp pro but under my new system, a fully updated windows 7 professional, i cannot format external drives to exfat.
Open run, type cmd and hit enter as shown in below pic. To format as a mac disk, choose either apfs or mac os extended journaled. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. We also have a command line disk utility interface in mac. To do that, the only thing you need is a bit of precise syntax to make sure that you are erasing the proper disk. Type diskpart into the command prompt window and press enter. Choose either apfs or mac os extended journaled to format as a mac volume. Convert formatted drive from mac to windows info remo. This guide covers how to format a hard drive using macos. And there you have it one read and writable disk ready for osx. There are a good number of reasons why you might want to format an external disk or a flash drive for full mac compatibility. And we can use it to format the usb on mac as well. To format an external hard drive for mac with time machine, you must follow the steps below. Opening disk management can be done a number of ways depending on your version of windows, but the easiest method is to type diskmgmt.
Here ill show you how you can erase and format a disk using the command line. As the ntfs 3g is free program most users have noted bugs despite of its success. Under the window of format, file system, the only option is. I have been to disk management and the usb that isnt showing up in my computer says it is unallocated. Bonus tip data recovery from formatted hard drive on mac. This will work in all modern versions of apple mac osx including 10. How to format an external hard drive on windows 10. Open disk management tool by rightclicking on start menu icon and then select disk management. How to format an external drive for mac launch disk utility. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. The command line approach to disk erasure in macos is a bit different and it requires precise syntax to insure that you are erasing the proper disk, making this method of erasing any disk only. Force an external mac drive to mount via command line terminal commands in mac os x.
To format a hard drive using cmd via command prompt, follow the diskpart commands below carefully. Before continuing, make sure that you have a backup of any files that you want to keep. Some mac users may require the ability to erase a disk or erase a hard drive from the command line on mac os, a task which is typically performed through the disk utility application from the gui. The command line approach to mounting and unmounting drives is intended for techies, of course it is complicated. Format a hard drive with the mac disk utility how to. You can, however, format a windows hard drive from a mac if you connect the windows hard drive to the mac and format it through disk utility, or the command line as described above. Formatting a disk using apples disk utility is the easiest and most straightforward method of the two. A system repair disc does not install windows 7 and you will not need a product key to use a system repair disc.
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