#FORMATTING HARD DRIVE MAC AND PC HOW TO#
#FORMATTING HARD DRIVE MAC AND PC SOFTWARE#
#FORMATTING HARD DRIVE MAC AND PC WINDOWS#

#FORMATTING HARD DRIVE MAC AND PC WINDOWS#

It was added to older versions of Windows with updates to Windows XP and Windows Vista. A FAT32 partition must also be less than 8 TB, which admittedly is less of a limitation unless you’re using super-high-capacity drives.ĮxFAT, Extended File Allocation Table, is optimized for flash drives. Individual files on a FAT32 drive can’t be over 4 GB in size. FAT32 is the oldest of the three file systems available to Windows. The successive major versions of the FAT format are named after the number of table element bits: FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32. Don't stray from them and tamper with instructions you don't understand.ĭifference Between FAT32, exFAT, and NTFSįAT is known as the File Allocation Table.

Only follow the Program Setup prompts.

Double-click it and select 'Create WD Applications'.

Navigate to 'My Machine' to see the new hard disk.

If you have a USB 3.0 port on your system, use it to gain a higher transfer speed.

Plug one end of the USB cable into the drive and the other end in your system.

Plug the wall/power bar and let power enter it.

#FORMATTING HARD DRIVE MAC AND PC SOFTWARE#

If you lost data after formatting your WD HDD on Mac, you can run EaseUS Mac data recovery software to get data back. Then, you can use the drive in macOS or OS X as a regular hard drive.

Wait for the process to complete and let the macOS erase data on the drive and reformat it by FAT32 or ex-FAT format. Rename the drive, select the 'Volume Format' drop-down list and choose 'MS-DOS (FAT)' or 'ex-FAT File System'. Select your WD My Passport on the sidebar, choose 'Erase'. 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'. Once the process begins, all the data on the drive will be lost! Tips: The instructions below are designed to help repartition and format a hard drive. The easiest way to format the drive to FAT32 or exFAT is by using macOS's built-in Disk Utility for FAT32 or exFAT.

#FORMATTING HARD DRIVE MAC AND PC HOW TO#

Click 'Start' to begin the formatting.ģ - How to Format WD My Passport in macOS/OS X Platform Rename the drive, reset its file system to FAT32 or exFAT. Open Windows File Explorer, locate and right-click on WD My Passport that you need to format, select 'Format'. If it is larger than 32GB, you can only format it to exFAT. If you want to format your WD My Passport to FAT32, you must make sure that the size is smaller than 32GB. It does not offer the ability to format a drive larger than 32GB to FAT32, the only available choices are NTFS or exFAT.

Click the 'Execute Operation' button and click 'Apply' to format the hard drive partition.Ģ - Format WD My Passport Using File Explorer in Windows Platform.

Set the Partition label, File system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3/EXT4/exFAT), and Cluster size, then click 'OK'.

Right-click the external drive or USB you intend to format and choose 'Format'.

SSD vs.Follow the details below to convert WD My Passport to format WD Passport for Mac.

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You'll see the MacOS Utilities window choose 'Disk Utility.' Now you can choose to erase your startup drive, and choose 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' as the operating system. To get around that problem, hold down the Command + R keys when you turn on your Mac and let go when the logo appears. If you want to format your Mac's system drive, you can't do that when the Mac is running normally because the drive is in use by the operating system. Usually, you'll want ExFAT, which is the default for the MacOS. Select the drive you want to format and then choose “Erase.”Ĥ. At the top of the window, click 'Erase.'ĥ. In the pop-up window, choose the file system you want to use.

Formatting hard drive mac and pc