Click the Erase button at the bottom right side. Next, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) from the Format dropdown list. Go to the Erase tab from the top of the window. Find the external hard drive on the left sidebar and click on it.

You can find it in Applications > Utilities. Also plug the external hard drive to your computer with a USB cable. Note: Again, do not forget to backup your Mac before formatting it. Similar to Windows, Apple has introduced the hard-drive-format feature into MacOS, but the procedure is pretty different. When prompted, hit OK to start formatting the external hard drive immediately.įor your external storage device like SD card, the steps work similarly, and you just need to insert your SD card into reader and plug it into your computer. That will perform a standard format, which will check errors and overwrite them on each sector. Next, uncheck the box next to Perform a quick format. Choose Default from the Allocation unite size option. FAT32 is compatible with both Windows and Mac. To use the external hard drive on Windows, select NTFS. Then select a proper file system from the File system dropdown list. Enter a name for the hard drive in the Volume label box. Right-click on the external hard drive and select Format to trigger the Format dialog. Here you can manage all your hard drives including the hard drive. Select System and Security > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management. Click the Start menu and open Control Panel from the context menu. Connect your external hard drive to your PC via a USB cable. It is available to Windows 10/8/7/XP/Vista. Then follow the easy steps below to format your external hard drive.

Part 3: How to Recover Data from a Formatted External Driveįormat hard drive will erase all data in it, and you should backup it before formatting it.īear in mind that formatting an external hard drive will erase all your data, so you’d better back up them before the procedure.

We will tell you how to perform external hard drive format quickly. To use it on a Mac computer, you have to format it to HFS or FAT32.

Be default, external hard drives are sold in NTFS, which is designed for Windows. However, hard drives advertised as being compatible with Windows and MacOS may have misled you into thinking you can use a hard drive cross-platform.įormatting external hard drive is a useful skill if you have one. According to a recent survey, people are more likely to use external hard drive to expand storage space for their digital devices, compared to other storage media.

Easy store hard drive reformat for mac