If you are trying to format mac external hard drive, you can go over the process step by step. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. 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. 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. Formatting external hard drive or usb drive november 21, 2017 by belal khan leave a comment formatting in context of usb or hard drives means deleting everything from that drive and. This wikihow teaches you how to change an external usb hard drives format on windows and mac computers. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. Mac format disk software aide format disk recovery v. Using a hidden command, you can resize disk partitions onthefly, without losing data. Download paragon partition manager free if you have not already, then install the software. Open finder and choose applications utilities disk utility to launch. Open terminal, either by spotlight or by opening the app from. How to force a hard drive to unmount for formatting in mac os. Then in the next method, we will format usb drive from mac terminal.
Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. The final commands should be modified appropriate to your disk and partition. People might need to format a hard drive or an external hard drive in windows 10 for various reasons. Choose view show all devices from the menu bar in disk utility. It can easily format hard drives, storage devices and permanently erase all the data on the targeted media. Quick format doesnt erase the data on the drive, uncheck the quick format and the drive is erased takes longer and formatted better in my opinion as the drive is checked for errors. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar. The first step in the process is to connect your external hard drive to your mac.
When the driver is installed, you format your ntfs disks with disk utility where you select windows nt filesystem as the format. You can run it on your mac, and use it to format external hard drive or device on your mac. So first, we will use the disk utility program, which is a gui and very. How to force a hard drive to unmount for formatting in mac. Once you have found the proper drive to erase, just copy its identifier so you can use it for the next command.
Formatting an external drive on your mac is quite easy, though it isnt as evident and obvious as it is on a pc. Disk utility is a smart hard drive format tool built in mac system. To do that, the only thing you need is a bit of precise syntax to. How to format a disk to ntfs using mac os x ask different. Why need to format external hard drive for mac and pc. For instance, users want to write data to and read data from, to do a clean installation of the windows system, to get rid of a virus or malware, to erase the data before giving the drive to someone else or throwing it away, or some other reasons. How to format a drive with the apfs file system on macos. How to format a drive with the apfs file system on macos sierra. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. To format a usb flash drive, simply plug the drive into your mac, and choose it from disk utilitys sidebar menu. Unformat mac hard drive recover formatted hard drive on mac. Macclean360 is one of the best disk cleaning and management software for mac os. For windows, it offers quick format feature when you rightclick the.
How to repair macbook pro hard disk drive with terminal. It is the fastest way to format an external hard drivedevice under mac os. Then select disk utility from the utilities window and click continue. If you are using a mac, you can run the builtin disk utility to quickly format a hard drive or external hard drive under mac os. If you are using a mac, you can run the builtin disk utility to quickly format a hard drive or external hard. For most reasons to erase, including when reformatting a disk or selling, giving away, or trading in your mac, you should erase your entire disk. On mac computers, all of this can be done with the disk utility app. Then you want to find the solution to unformat your mac hard drive to recover your files on it. Just launch the disk utility, rightclick or controlclick the drive containing your apfs partition, and select erase. Although disk utility should always be tried first, a macs terminal can be used to format the drive in these cases. 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.
One easy way to write zeros to a hard drive to erase all the data, is to format the drive in a special way using the format command from the command prompt. How to format an external drive in os x make tech easier. For windows, it offers quick format feature when you rightclick the hard drive on the computer. Unformat mac hard drive recover formatted hard drive on.
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. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. This guide covers how to format a hard drive using macos. Aug 30, 2019 this article explains how to format a usb drive on mac using the commandline. To do that, the only thing you need is a bit of precise syntax to make sure that you are erasing the proper disk.
How to use the format command to write zeros to a hard drive. To conclude now, you have known how to recover formatted mac hard drive and why you need to format a hard drive. Both windows and mac os offer builtin disk formatting tool. How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. Usb flash drive formatting software for mac can help us format, reformat or erase usb flash drive on mac. To format a disk using apples disk utility, simply follow the steps below. Mac hard drive test software creating the definitive. Formatting a hard drive can change the file system to make it. Either way, youll want to format your drive accordingly. Specifically i would like to know how to format in the different file systems such as ntfs, fat32, ext4, etc. Open disk management, the hard drive manager included with all. With easeus data recovery wizard the accomplished data recovery software, you can easily achieve your goal of recovering the formatted hard drive on your mac. How to format a drive in linux there are plenty of graphical tools available for disk partitioning and formatting on desktop linux systems.
Working with terminal start off by running the following command in the command line. Aug 30, 2016 this is an article for mac, it is erasing a hard drive from a mac command line, it is not a windows tutorial. How to erase your hard drive from the mac os x terminal. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 on mac os xmacos. 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. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. How to format an external disk or a flash drive for mac. I would strongly recommend that anyone interested open up a terminal.
Diskutil list this is going to list all the mounted drives on your mac. Verify and repair volume via terminal mac os x launch terminal from your dock, utilities folder, or via an app launcher like alfred. This article explains how to format a usb drive on mac using the commandline. Even though using the disk utility tool to format your usb drive on mac is a straightforward procedure. Although the erasure process is a bit difficult, the tool to. Select the hard drive and click erase, then disk utility will help you format and erase the hard drive or device. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the. Get through this article and get the ways of recovering formatted mac hard drive data. Force an external mac drive to mount via command line terminal commands in mac os x. How to erase or format a mac hard drive via command line.
Oct 06, 2016 force an external mac drive to mount via command line terminal commands in mac os x. For apple mac users, there are two ways to format usb flash drive to fat32, including disk utility and terminal command line. Backup is necessary since hard drive repair process may fail due to. Download disk formatting software for mac doyourdata. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Mac os x mountain lion gives users several ways to access the terminal and three common options for formatting a hard drive. Instructions for how to format your external drive so that it will be fully usable in macos. You do not want to format the drive though for mac. The two hard drive formatting software for mac can help you securely format hard drive or device under mac os. 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.
Mac os x can only be installed on a hard drive formatted in mac os extended journaled, filesystem. If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. Dec 29, 2015 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. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. Mac format disk software free download mac format disk. Hard drive format software for mac mac disk format software. 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. Follow these easy steps to format a hard drive in windows 10, windows 8, windows 7, windows vista, or windows xp. Although the erasure process is a bit difficult, the tool to format the hard drives is builtinto the macos.
Choose another file system from the format box and click erase. But some mac users might need to erase them from the command line on mac os. How to format toshiba harddrive for mac apple community. Here are top 5 usb flash drive formatting software tools for mac to help in formatting, reformatting, erasing usb flash drive under os x or macos. How to repair macbook pro hard disk drive with terminal quora.
These steps can be used for both internal and external drives. But both of them cant format the hard drive which the mac os is installed on because the. Most users use disk utility to erase a disk or hard drive. First, let us look at how to create a bootable drive using terminal. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac apple.
While the program loads, it will scan the disks attached to the system and present a list. Many external drives even include their own software for getting started. Accidentally, you formatted the hard drive on your mac. How to erase a disk for mac use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. If you are having a hard time using the command line, try the disk utility app, which is simpler and uses the gui. Even though using the disk utility tool to format your usb drive on mac is a straightforward procedure, sometimes you might want to use the terminal. This guide will walk through how to erase and format an entire target disk using exclusively the command line on any mac using macos or mac.
How to install macos or os x on a new hard drive for your mac. If you are wondering how to wipe a hard drive or format disk terminal mac you are just at the right place. Backup is necessary since hard drive repair process may fail due to severe corruption. You can continue using recoverit data recovery to retrieve deleted, lost or. Information on how to partition the drive via terminal is also wanted. Here ill show you how you can erase and format a disk using the command line. Easily format your usb drive on mac with the command line. I am trying to format a high capacity external hard drive ehdd into ntfs from the terminal. Super eraser for mac best mac disk format software super eraser for mac is a very powerful tool to permanently erase data from mac hard drive or storage media. Best 5 usb flash drive formatting software for mac. A popup menu will appear, and you can customize many options here. Its easy to use only if you know the right way to do it. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. How to format volumes to extfs or ntfs using terminal.
Format a hard drive on a computer running mac os x how to. Jan 02, 2016 either way, youll want to format your drive accordingly. I havent tried this one, but it should also do the job. Format a drive for both mac os x and microsoft windows.
Jul 12, 2017 just launch the disk utility, rightclick or controlclick the drive containing your apfs partition, and select erase. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. You can format a drive in os x using two applications. Be sure to doublecheck this you could accidentally wipe the wrong drive if you select the wrong disk here. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. In the sidebar, select the disk you want to format to use with windows computers. The best partition scheme for a drive that will be used for both mac and windows is to format it exfat. Before proceeding with any of the mac hard drive repair session, it is requested to backup all mac data through time machine application.
Its use allows you to execute commands that provide the same result without having to rely on software applications. However, many a time youll need to format hard drive from the command line, especially when youre running a server. How to erase a disk from command line in mac os x osxdaily. Now you will need to select the disk you wish to format. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. The sidebar now shows your disks devices and any containers. For most reasons to erase, including when reformatting a.
So, for your main hard drive, you could type or paste in something like. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. Nov 21, 2017 formatting external hard drive or usb drive november 21, 2017 by belal khan leave a comment formatting in context of usb or hard drives means deleting everything from that drive and rebuilding the file system so that we can use it with an operating system. When the driver is installed, you format your ntfs disks with disk utility where you select windows nt filesystem as the. Once launched, type or paste in the following command. Apr 14, 2020 why need to format external hard drive for mac and pc. It also can format ssd hard drive and erase data under mac os. If you want to see all the available command line shortcuts for software update, just type. Apr 26, 2016 the easiest way to format a disk in mac os x is using disk utility. In the disk utility app on your mac, choose view show all devices. You can then rightclick in the empty space and select new simple volume to create a partition and format it with the windows ntfs or fat32 file systems. Verify and repair disk permissions via terminal mac os x.
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