However, if you want to convert ntfs to exfat to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc, 3 steps are required. How to troubleshoot and fix external drive not detected. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Error message when formatting a new drive external drives. Just purchased a 2tb hitachi xl2000 external hard drive. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other. Click erase and from the format dropdown select exfat. How to open an external drive thats not showing on mac. Formatting your drive will wipe out all the data in it.
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. To format a hard drive for windows, open the file explorer and click on this pc. How to fix mac osx hard drive formatting issue 2018 youtube. Normally when you plug in an external hard drive to your macs usb port you. Well show you everything you need to know about the. Aomei partition assistant is a reliable format tool which can be used to format usb drive, external hard drive, sd card, internal hard drive, etc. Including how to format a drive to be used on a mac and a pc and how to. May 01, 2020 how to erase a disk for mac use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. Open disk utility select wd drive click view upper left, and click down arrow select main drive not volume, thats whats causing the problem now click erase, enter name, select os extended journaled, and scheme is guid partition map now click erase button. If you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between mac and pc is an often difficult but it doesnt need to be. Connect the external hard drive to your mac and copy the important data to the mac pc. If your disk or volume doesnt appear, or the erase fails.
Click go on the top tool bar, and select utilities. Aug 16, 2019 try selecting the wd at the hard drive level i. Sometimes, viruses and malware can cause such errors. This wikihow teaches you how to change an external usb hard drive s format on windows and mac computers. If you already used your external hard drive on a pc, be sure to back up any files on it. I have been trying to walk her through reformatting it but nothing is working. You were right, you did indeed have to select wd my passport screen shot 20170625 at 6. Nov 14, 2019 it helps to verify and repair a range of issues related to startup hd and external drive problems. One of the main reasons why drives fail to mount is if the drive isnt. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility.
If the hard drive you want to format is connected to your pc, it should be there. Then, you can share external hard drive between mac and pc. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. Solved erase process has failed when formatting usb mac. Trouble formatting external hard drive macrumors forums. My passport wont format external drives for mac wd community. How to fix a corrupted external hard drive on macmacbook.
Rightclick on it and select the format option from the context menu. Format your external drive with exfat for both mac and. How to fix erase process has failed issue using terminal command. The disk utility gives no options for formatting under the erase. Select the larger one and start the erase process from there. Mac os x fails when trying to format external hdd super user. Now connect the external hard drive to windows 8 computer and format it in fat32 file system. Select exfat when formatting an external drive with windows. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac.
How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. Macos disk utility wont format new drive fix how to workaround. If you see the messages telling you that the first aid failed, the external hard drive is too corrupted to be fixed by first aid. How to force a hard drive to unmount for formatting in mac os. Sounds simple, but first boot after an os upgrade or with a failed disk mount due to timing. When the disk utility recognizes it the drive is read only. If wd external hard drive wont format problem is not related with write protection, you can clean it and create new partition. Force an external mac drive to mount via command line terminal commands in mac os x. After youre done, dont forget to remove the external hard. Now you would be able to use the external hard disk on both the computers. Apr 22, 2020 steps to repair corrupted hard disk without formatting. A mac will read an ntfs drive but wont write to it so i have been using usb memory sticks. Mar 31, 2020 if you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between mac and pc is an often difficult but it doesnt need to be. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and.
Using the terminal command, we remove the usb forcefully and do the clean format. Here are the steps to partition an external hard drive for mac and windows pc, which is a little tricky. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Feb 26, 2018 this is a tutorial on how to force your hard drive to reformat in mac osx high sierra possibly earlier versions diskutil list diskutil unmountdisk force disk4 sudo dd ifdevzero ofdevdisk4. Error message when formatting a new drive external drives for mac. Apr 14, 2020 by this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for mac and pc without losing any data. Fortunately, in this article, we will provide you two effective ways to solve the seagate, wd or other brands external hard drive not formatting problem. How to force a hard drive to unmount for formatting in mac. It can happen for external usb and firewire as well as internal disks. Feb 08, 2020 how to partition an external hard drive on mac. Smaller external hard drives, ssds, and usb flash keys format quickly, while a larger hard drive may take a while longer. After recovering your important files from the raw external hard drive, you can now directly format the hard drive into ntfs. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Follow these steps to repair corrupt hard disk without formatting, and get back the data.
How to repair corrupted external hard drive without losing. This post will teach you how to format your macs hard disk and fix common errors. For some mac models, the partition option would be greyed out in disk utility. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Select the external hard drive on the lefthand side. This way will erase all data on wd external hard drive. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. Disk utility error message when formatting in macbook pro, imac, mac mini, mac pro, macbook air. Open the window explorer,and select the my computerthis pc section in the sidebar, then locate your drive. As you know, windows builtin tools cannot support to format partition larger than 32gb to fat32. Wd external hard drive wont format what should i do.
How to fix raw external hard drive without formatting. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. Click on the first aid button, or rightclick the external hard drive and choose first aid from the options. Before continuing, make sure that you have a backup of any files that you want to keep. If you are able to fix the hard drive or ssd in your mac or an external drive using disk utility you will hopefully be able to recover your files. If youre not erasing the disk your mac started up from, you dont need to start up from. Hi, yesterday i bought a new 8tb wd external hard drive, it came formatted as exfat, i tried to format it to hfs but after a few seconds it failed and i got the message drive failed to unmount, then the driver dissapeared, disk utility would display it as disk5s1 but every attempt at formatting. How do you fix external hard drive wont format in windows 10. How to format hard drive and fix disk format errors on mac.
If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Choose 1 partition from the volume scheme and then click on options. Sep 19, 2014 she has a mac mini and a wd passport external hard drive. Today i found out how to format a large sata external drive as fat32 to make this process easier. The hard drive is already formatted in mac os extended. 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. The options in disk management in windows 7 for formatting an external hdd is ntfs or exfat. So, we suggest that its better to use a pc to partition an external hard drive for macos and windows. Connect the hard drive to a windows pc and use a reliable antivirusmalware tool to scan the drive or the system. Stellar data recovery professional supports the recovery of files from an external hard drive on macos catalina, mojave, high sierra and other macosos x variants. Under file system, choose the file system you want to use. You can easily fix this issue using some terminal commands. 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. Given the varying situation, we will show you how to fix toshiba external hard drive not working according to your exact scenario and present you the toshiba hard drive recovery tool to rescue your data on the storage medium.
A cloned drive, of course, also serves as a useful backup of all the data on the original drive, and will let you get up and running quickly if your first hard drive fails. Just for the sake of having an answer here, this is what ended up fixing the problem. Open the disk utility and select the external drive. Once you have activated the mac recovery tool you can recover as many. Mac os x sierra open disk utility and click the drive you want to format. Some external hard drives need to be plugged into an outlet to work. I need a drive to swap between an imac and a windows 7 pc. This is a tutorial on how to force your hard drive to reformat in mac osx high sierra possibly earlier versions diskutil list diskutil unmountdisk force. It happens that a toshiba external hard drive is not working in windows, be it not showing up, not recognized, or not showing files. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive.
Drive fixer how to troubleshoot and fix external drive not detected issues on windows 10 if your pc isnt detecting an external hard drive, use this guide to resolve the issue. Apr 14, 2020 select the external hard drive at the left side. Formatting a hard drive can change the file system to make it compatible with your computers operating system, as well as fix any nonphysical errors on the drive itself. To format disk well, it is recommended to use aomei partition assistant. High sierra wont format new drives fix macos disk utility erase process has failed fix disk utility unable to format erase hard drive fix. Oct 06, 2016 have you ever tried to format a disk in mac os x and disk utility wont unmount the hard drive for formatting. How to repair corrupted hard disk without formatting. The videos below demonstrate the complete process of formatting an external hard drive for full mac os x compatibility, this uses the. High sierra wont format new drives macrumors forums. The open close button on the keyboard doesnt work, holding down c at startup doesnt work and i even plugged an external firewire drive into the.
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