Choose the disk you’d like to format, right-click and select Format. Select Administrative Tools, then Computer Management and Disk management. Click on Start or the Windows button, select Control Panel, then System and Security. To format or reformat your solid state drive using Microsoft Windows , follow these instructions: 1.Online Storage or Online Backup: What's The Difference?This wikiHow teaches you how to change an external (USB) hard drive's format on Windows and Mac computers. Without this step, your computer will have no idea where to write or read. Erase the oldest version of the files to make way for the new ones.How to format portable hard drive for Mac and PC Usually, when we use a new hard drive for the first time, no matter it's portable or non-portable, it can not be directly put into use for it has to be initialized and formatted first, like giving it fresh new birth.
Change the format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Choose a new name for your Mac’s hard drive. Click the Erase button at the top of the window. If you don’t see it, go to View > Show All Devices. How to Access the Deep Web and the Dark Net Give the partition a name and select exFAT for the format. Select the new untitled partition so we can format it as exFAT for use with both Mac and Windows. What Is Hard Drive Formatting?Most people associate hard drive formatting with erasing a hard drive. Let’s first talk about hard drive formatting, file systems and how formatting doesn’t necessarily erase all data from your drive. We’ll show you how to format your hard drive on Mac and Windows computer operating systems, and explain key settings on both operating systems.Before getting to that, though, it’s important to understand what hard drive formatting is. It can also be used to prep a hard drive for use with another operating system.In this guide on how to format external hard drives, we’re going to help you make sure your portable disk works with everything. Formatting allows you to overwrite all the information on the hard drive, resetting the file structure and how the drive interacts with the operating system. Format A New Hard Drive For Pc And Install Of YourBeforehand, just be sure your files are backed up with an online backup service, such as Backblaze(read our Backblaze review).Before getting into the formatting process, though, it’s important to go over what you’ll be formatting the drive with: a file system.File systems are what operating systems use to store information on a storage device. In the same way a fresh install of your OS can solve most issues, reformatting your hard drive is a critical step in troubleshooting problems. In fact, that’s one of our recommended troubleshooting steps in our how to solve an external hard drive not showing up guide.Outside of formatting for initial use, you may need to reformat your hard drive if you encounter errors. Most external drives come ready to use on your computer, but in rare cases, you’ll need to format your drive. Instead, formatting is used to get the hard drive to a state in which it can be used by the computer, which requires all written data to be erased from the drive.The data isn’t erased completely, but we’ll touch more on that later. Like most file systems, NTFS is restricted once you move outside of Windows. NTFS: This is what Windows uses by default. Because of that, we’re going to go over the most commonly used file system options so you’ll know what’s what. The one yours uses largely depends on the drive and the computer OS you’re using. It can’t store files larger than 4GB, though, so it has fallen out of favor in recent years. FAT32 also works across Linux, Windows and macOS, and in years past, it was the de facto option for flash drives. FAT32: This is the older, uglier cousin of ExFAT. Though not as prevalent as NTFS, you’ll often find flash drives and external solid-state drives formatted to ExFAT out of the box because multi-platform support and the lack of file size restrictions make it an ideal choice for plug-and-play setups. Windows and macOS can read and write data to ExFAT. ExFAT: This isn’t exclusive to any OS. How to Format External Hard DrivesNow that we have formatting and file system basics out of the way, it’s time to show you how to format your external drive. Alternatively, you could dump the files from your drive to a cloud storage service, such as Sync.com, format the drive and put your files back on it (read our Sync.com review, and check out our cloud storage providers comparison). That’s because those file systems work across platforms while NTFS and HFS Plus don’t.Whichever file system your hard drive is shipped with, that’s what you have to use if you don’t want to remove all information from the drive. If you’ve checked out a sideloading guide, such as our Kodi sideloading guide, you probably saw recommendations to format to ExFAT or FAT32. It’s limited on Windows machines, but Apple users will be able to read and write to HFS Plus-formatted drives without issues.We hope it’s clear now why understanding file systems is important. Photo cropping tool visa for macThat said, if you want to change settings, you’ll need to know the details of each. How to Format Your External Drive on WindowsFormatting a hard drive on Windows is a simple affair, especially if you leave everything as default.
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