Under Volume Type, click Select Device and find your flash drive. If your flash drive is empty, select Create encrypted volume and format it. On the next page, you will be able to select hashing and encryption algorithms. If you are not sure what to choose, we recommend AES and SHA-512. Format USB Flash Drives to Work With Both Mac and Windows 7 by Jack Scicluna Photography, LLC - guest writer. The latest trend with computers is not including a CD/DVD drive. Make Windows Bootable USB Mac with PassFab 4WinKey. Thinking about how do I create a.

Summary :

Want to format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows PC? Do you know how to do this work easily? This MiniTool article will show you specific methods to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC, which are easy and safe to complete.

As we know, external hard drives are widely used to backup data or interchange files among different computers. Well, is there an external hard drive that could be shared between Mac and Windows PC? Of course, there is. Actually, most external hard disks could be compatible with Mac and PC as long as you format them correctly.

Why Need to Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC

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.

Currently, hard drives for Windows PC are always formatted with NTFS, while hard disks for Mac are formatted with HFS+. However, when we connect a NTFS formatted disk to Mac, Mac OS X doesn't allow us to write files to the drive neither edit files, though it can read a NTFS drive. Similarly, Windows OS will ask us to format the HFS+ formatted drive when we connecting such a disk, let along edit files saved on HFS+ formatted hard disks unless we resort to third party programs.

But luckily, there are file systems well supported by both Mac and Windows PC, and they are FAT32 (it might be called MS-DOS on Mac) and exFAT. As long as we format the external hard drive to one of these 2 file systems, it can be shared between Mac and Windows.

Further Reading

Both FAT32 and exFAT have advantages and disadvantages.

FAT32: FAT32 works with all versions of Windows, Mac OS, Linux, game consoles, etc.

However, single files on a FAT32 drive can't be larger than 4GB. If your external drive saves files larger than 4GB or you plan to save larger files to this drive, converting to FAT32 is not recommended.

In addition, a FAT32 partition must be not more than 32GB if you create it in Windows Disk Management. Of course, there is free partition manager that can help create a FAT32 volume up to 2TB, which also functions correctly.

exFAT: exFAT has very large file size and partition size limits, which means it's a good idea to format your external hard drive to exFAT.

Nevertheless, a lot of users complained that exFAT is slow, and they highly suggest using FAT32 if you can avoid file size constraints.

Three Options for Accessing NTFS Drives on Mac

Paid Third-Party Drivers

Some paid third-party NTFS drivers for Mac can be used to access NTFS drives on Mac. They work well and they have better performance than the free solutions which will be mentioned in the following part. Paragon NTFS for Mac is such a driver.

Besides, you can also use the paid third-party file system converters to convert NTFS to FAT32 or exFAT which are compatible with both Mac and PC. MiniTool Partition Wizard is one representative.

Free Third-Party Drivers

FUSE for macOS is a free and open-source NTFS driver that can enable write support. But, this solution is slower relatively. And the automatically mounting NTFS partitions in read-write mode can be a security risk for your Mac computer.

Apple’s Experimental NTFS-Write Support

The Mac OS has an experimental support for writing to NTFS drives. Usually, it is disabled by default and needs some messing around in the Mac terminal to enable it.

It doesn’t work properly all the time and could lead to potential issues with your NTFS file system. For example, it had corrupted data before. Thus, we don’t suggest using this tool and we believe it is disabled by this reason.

Here, we recommend using the paid third-party tools since they are easy-to-use and can do good work for you.

Then, we will introduce these three options for you in the following content.

The Best Paid Third-Party Driver: Paragon NTFS for Mac

Paragon NTFS for Mac can write, edit, delete, copy, or move files on NTFS volumes from your Mac computer. It offers a 10-day free trial. If you want to use it all the time, you need to pay for it.

With it, you don’t have to fiddle with terminal commands to mount partitions manually. Additionally, it can mount partitions automatically and safely. More importantly, it can code with the potential corruption. If you purchase a Seagate drive, you can even get a free download of Paragon NTFS for Mac.

All in all, it does its works well and gives you good user’s experience.

The Best Free Third-Party Drivers: FUSE for macOS

FUSE for macOS is a free solution to access NTFS on Mac. But it is less secure.

If you want to make automatically mount NTFS partitions in read-write mode on Mac, you need to temporarily disable the System Integrity Protection and replace one of Apple’s built-in tools with a binary that is more vulnerable to attack. Thus, your Mac is in danger when using this driver.

However, you can use it to manually mount NTFS partitions in read-write mode if you never mind using the Terminal. This will be safer, but you need to do more work. You can go to google the steps and see how complex they are.

Apple’s Experimental NTFS-Writing Support: Don’t Do This, Seriously

Although we mentioned this method in our article, we still don’t recommend it because it is the least tested. It is just for educational purposes, and it is available on Mac OS 10.12 Sierra. Perhaps, it will be unstable forever.

How to Quickly Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC without Losing Data

Another way to access NTFS drive on Mac is to convert the NTFS/HFS+ to FAT/exFAT. Then, the drive can be used on both Mac and PC.

There should be some important data on the drive. To keep it safe, you can choose this best NTFS/HFS+ to FAT/exFAT converter: MiniTool Partition Wizard.

How to Convert NTFS to FAT32 or exFAT Without Data Loss

To format hard drive for Mac and Windows without data loss, we suggest using MiniTool Partition Wizard and its 'Convert NTFS to FATS32' function. If you are a personal user, you can try its Professional Edition.

Step 1: Run MiniTool Partition Wizard

Download this software to your computer. Then, you can open the software and input the license key to the pop-out window to get its Professional Edition.

Step 2: Convert NTFS to FAT32 with This Software

After running the program successfully, we can see its main interface as follows:

Here, please select the NTFS partition of external hard drive and choose 'Convert NTFS to FAT' feature from the left action pane. If there is more than one NTFS partition, convert all of them one by one.

At last, click 'Apply' button to make the change executed.

When MiniTool Partition Wizard shows it applies the change successfully, the original NTFS will finally become a FAT32 partition.

By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for Mac and PC without losing any data. Then, you can share external hard drive between Mac and PC

You Can Convert NTFS to exFAT in 3 Steps

However, if you want to convert NTFS to exFAT to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC, 3 steps are required.

Step 1: Transfer Data out from External Hard Drive

You can choose to copy and paste those files to other external devices or internal hard disk of Windows, but it will cost much time. Instead, you can use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition to create a copy for your external drive, which is faster.

If there is only one NTFS partition on external hard drive, refer to the tutorial Copy Partition to get instructions. However, if there is more than one NTFS partition, view Copy Disk to get specific operations.

Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard

The Free Edition of this software also enables you to do this job.

Firstly, you need to delete the partition by using this software. Just open the software to enter its main interface. Then, choose the target partition and click 'Delete Partition' from the left action pane. After that, you should click 'Apply' to keep this change.

Secondly, the target partition will become unallocated. Here, you need to choose that partition and click on 'Create Partition' from the left action pane.

Thirdly, you will see a pop-out window. Here, you can choose 'exFAT' from the 'File System' setting option. At the same time, you can also set some other parameters for this partition, including 'Partition Label', 'Drive Letter', 'Size And Location'. After that, please click on 'OK'.

Fourthly, you will go back to the main interface. Then, please click on 'Apply' to save these changes.

Finally, an exFAT partition will be created on your external hard disk so that it could be shared between Mac and Windows PC

Step 3: Transfer Data back to External Drive

If you want to share files that you have backed up between Mac and PC, now please transfer these files back to external hard drive.

How to Convert HFS+ to FAT32 or exFAT without Losing Data

Besides, you can format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows by converting HFS+ to FAT32 or exFAT without losing any data.

Step 1: Backup Data in HFS+ Partition on Mac

Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on Mac. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step.

Step 2: Create a FAT32 or exFAT Partition on Windows PC

Some people may ask why create such partitions on Windows rather than Mac. That is because there are cases reporting FAT32 (MS-DOS) or exFAT partitions created on Mac did not work well on Windows.

Please skip to Solution 1: Format External Hard Drive to FAT32 to get steps to create a FAT32 partitions or go back to Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard to get operations to create an exFAT partition.

How to Make an Empty External Drive Compatible with Mac and PC

If there is no file saved on your external hard drive, how to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC?

It's very easy to share it between Mac and PC and you also need a Windows computer, a Mac machine, and the free partition manager MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.

There are 3 solutions for this case, so please choose the one you like most to format external hard drive Windows 10/8/7.

Solution 1: Format External Hard Drive Windows 10/8/7 to FAT32

Since users are unable to create a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB in Windows Disk Management, they need to use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free.

Please download and install this program on your Windows computer to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC.

Firstly, open the software to enter its main interface as follows. Here, please select the NTFS partition or HFS+ partition of external hard drive, and click 'Delete Partition' feature from the left action pane. If there are multiple partitions on the external disk, please select the disk and click 'Delete All Partitions' feature instead. After that, an unallocated space will be released.

Secondly, you can create one or more FAT32 partitions in unallocated space. Select the unallocated space and choose 'Create Partition' feature from the left side.

Then, you should choose 'FAT32' from the 'File System' option in the pop-out window. Meanwhile, you can set properties for this new partition and click 'OK' to go back to the main window of Partition Wizard.

At last, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

Solution 2: Format External Hard Drive Windows 7/8/10 to exFAT

Firstly, please delete the NTFS or HFS+ partition in either MiniTool Partition Wizard or Windows Disk Management to release unallocated space. Then, you can create an exFAT partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition by following steps introduced in the section Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Once a FAT32 or exFAT partition is created on your external hard drive, you can share it on both Mac and Windows PC.

Solution 3: Create One HFS+ Partition for Mac and One NTFS Partition for Windows

Alternatively, you can create 2 partitions on the external hard drive: one is for Mac, and the other is for Windows. As to size for each partition, it depends on your own demands. By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows.

Step 1: Create a NTFS Partition and a FAT32 Partition

Please run MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition, then delete all the original NTFS or HFS+ partition(s), and create a new NTFS partition as well as a FAT32 partition, and the latter will be formatted to HFS+ in Mac machine.

Then, select the external hard drive and choose 'Delete All Partitions' to create an unallocated space.

Here, select the unallocated space and choose 'Create Partition' feature from the left action pane.

Now, please specify partition label (Windows is recommended), partition type (primary or logical), drive letter, file system (NTFS), cluster size, and partition size (you can change the length of the handle to adjust partition size). Then, click 'OK' to continue.

Now, you can see a NTFS partition is created. Please use the same way to create a FAT32 partition labeled with Mac. At last, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

Step 2: Format the FAT32 Partition to HFS+ Partition on Mac

Please go to Utilities → Disk Utility.

Then, select the external hard drive and click 'Partition' tab on the top.

Now, find the FAT32 partition and format it to OS X Extended (Journaled), which is the desired HFS+. Finally, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

After NTFS partition and HFS+ partition are created on your external hard drive, it can be shared between Mac and Windows PC.

Bottom Line

Usb Format Mac And Windows

Are you planning to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC? If yes, now try one of our methods to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC.

Should you have any problem, just feel free to leave us a message in comment part below or send an email to [email protected].

Format Hard Drive for Mac and PC FAQ

How to format internal and/or external drive to work properly on Mac and Windows computers?

External data storage devices such as USB flash drives, external Hard Disk Drives (HDDs), and Solid State Drives (SSDs) provide one of the easiest ways to transfer files between separate computers without accessing the Internet. This option is often used when attempting to move very large files. The method is also chosen by people who work with media data that imposes various limitations and automatic optimizations when transferring via Internet. Despite the advantages of using external data storage to transfer content, some experienced users encounter problems caused by the difference between operating systems. This article addresses these issues.

A common issue discussed by users within various technical support forums is that of USB flash drives not working on their computers. This is a cross-platform problem that Windows and macOS users often experience. For example, a photographer may provide you with a USB flash drive with stored photos and videos from your birthday party, but you cannot access them on your system. This is the result of differences between operating systems on computers. Windows and macOS use separate file system formats. PCs with Windows operating systems use New Technology File System (NTFS) while Macs with macOS operating systems use Hierarchical File System (HFS+). By default, USB flash drives and external storage are formatted with the NTFS file system - this works flawlessly on PCs, while Mac computers are able to read data in the format, but struggle to write using this type of storage. Fortunately, there is a simple solution: format your external storage with the File Allocation Table (FAT32) or Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT) file system. In this article, we describe the differences between these two file systems and how to format external storage using a Mac computer.

Table of Contents:

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Which file system to choose - FAT32 or exFAT?

As mentioned above, both file systems are compatible with Windows or macOS/OS X operating systems. Naturally, the question is: which should you choose? To make the choice easier, we describe both file systems and their features below.

Starting with FAT32 [on a Mac, known as MS-DOS (FAT)], this file system is fully compatible with all versions of Windows and Mac operating systems. Therefore, even the oldest versions of operating systems such as Windows XP SP1 and OS x 10.5 Leopard are compatible. As well as computers, the FAT32 file system is supported by PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and most cameras. This particular file system does contain file size restrictions. For example, the maximum size of supported files is 4GB (you cannot write files larger than 4GB). Also, you cannot create a startup drive for Mac computers within storage media that uses the FAT32 file system. If, however, you are not planning to use external storage to transfer large files or create any executable partitions (such as a Mac startup drive) the FAT32 file system might be an option, since this format is supported in all versions of the operating system.

exFAT is a newer file system format and has the biggest advantage when compared with FAT32: there are no restrictions on file or partition sizes stored. Therefore, you can write a file of, for example, 1TB size and create partitions of 5TB within the device. Despite this improvement of available data size, some older versions of operating systems are no longer compatible with this file system format. The oldest versions of operating systems compatible with exFAT are listed below:

• Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.5 or later
• OS X Lion
• Windows XP SP2 or later (with an additional update for exFAT support)
• Windows Vista SP1 or later
• Windows 7

Unfortunately, as well as some old versions of operating systems, the exFAT file system format is not supported by various cameras, video games consoles, and other devices able to read and/or write to external storage. If you will be using a USB flash drive or external storage device with any of these, the required format is FAT32. Otherwise, if the device is to be used only with computers with modern versions of operating systems, the recommended format is exFAT.

Format the drive with Mac computer

Format Flash Drive Mac Fat32

Firstly, bear in mind that formatting the drive will erase all content stored on it. Mac computers are capable of formatting any storage device (internal or external) such as HDD/SSD, USB flash drive, and external storage. Even if the Mac is unable to mount the storage, following this method will enable you to format the storage. Begin by connecting the storage device to your Mac, and then launch Disk Utility using Spotlight. Simply use the keyboard shortcut of Command and Spacebar, type Disk Utility, and then press return. Alternatively, open Finder and go to Applications, open Utilities, and then launch Disk Utility. Select the drive you wish to format from the list in the left sidebar of the Disk Utility window.

Format Flash Drive For Mac And Windows 10

Then click the Erase button at the top of the window, in the new pop-up window, and type the name of drive. Then click the drop-down menu beside Format and select MS-DOS (FAT) - the FAT32 file format - or exFAT. These formats are described above.

If you are not planning to use this drive as the Windows startup disk or use it with the oldest version of the operating system, do not change the Scheme. Select Master Boot Record.

Finally, when all preferences are set, click the Erase button. The formatting process duration depends on size and type of the drive. A hard disk drive will take longer to format than a flash drive. NOTE: formatting will erase all existing data on the drive.

Format Flash Drive From Mac To Windows

Video Showing how to format drive for Mac and Windows computers