- How Do You Reformat A Hard Drive For Mac
- How Do You Reformat A Hard Drive For Mac High Sierra
- Macbook Pro Format Hard Drive
By Adela D. Louie, Last updated: July 28, 2020
If what you are aiming for is to make sure that you have complete compatibility of the external hard drive to your Mac, then you what you need to do is to have it formatted to Mac OS Extended filesystem. This process is very common for those generic hard drives which are commonly preformatted compatible with a Windows computer and not for a Mac OS X.
A drive can be used on any type of computer - PC or Mac. But in order for the computer and drive to communicate with one another, the drive has to be formatted with the correct file system. This article explains about file systems and provides instruction to format a drive on Windows and Mac. Formatting/Reformatting a hard drive for a Mac 1. Open Disk Utility by clicking Finder - Applications - Utilities and finally click Disk Utility. Thus, when you are planning to use the same Hard Drive on any other OS, particularly MacOS, it is always suggested to format your Hard Drive for Mac. Formatting your Toshiba Hard Drive for Mac is important, as it makes the Hard Drive best suitable for the Mac by formatting it with the OS-specific File System and Drivers. Connect the external drive or the USB drive to the MAC. Start the Disk Utility, located under Applications Utilities.
And reformatting your external hard drive for Mac OS X is not a very difficult thing to do. This process is actually very simple and will only require you to do a few steps. And after that, you will then be able to save any backup files that you want on your external hard drive. And at the same time, you will be able to keep all of the information that you have stored in your external hard drive safe.
The fact is that you can actually use any hard drive with your Mac, however, if you want to make sure that you get the most out of it, then you can have it reformatted for your Mac OS X. That is why in this article, we are going to show you a quick way on how to reformat the external hard drive, Mac. And as a bonus, we are going to show you a special way on how you can recover data deleted from your external hard drive as well.
How to Reformat External Hard Drive Mac
For you to be able to reformat your external hard drive Mac, here are the steps you need to follow.
- Step 1. Plugin Hard Drive- The first thing that you need to do is to have your external hard drive be plugged into your computer.
- Step 2. Go to Disk Utilities- And then, launch the Disk Utility folder which is located from going to your Applications folder and Utility folder.
- Step 3. Look for the Hard Drive’s Name- And from the Disk utility folder, just go ahead and locate for the name of your external hard drive from the left side of your screen. And once that you have found it, go ahead and click it and then hit on the Erase button.
- Step 4. Do Instructions Needed- And then, there will be an on-screen instruction shown to you. This will lead you in selecting the option Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Also, this will then let you format your external hard drive.
And that is how to reformat external hard drive Mac easily. Once that you are done with the process, then you will be able to use your drive and have your backup file saved using it.
BONUS TIP: How to Recover Deleted Data from Reformat External Hard Drive Mac
Now you have already known how to reformat external hard drive Mac easily and in a fast way. So which means that you can now use your drive for you to store important documents and other files that you have.
Now, since we know how important it is to keep your data safe in your external hard drive, we have made special software for you that you can use just in case that something happens to your external hard drive causing you to delete all of the saved data in it. In short, with this software, you will be able to recover them back to your external hard drive. The software that we are talking about is no other than the FoneDog Data Recovery.
Data RecoveryRecover deleted image, document, audio and more files.Get deleted data back from computer (including Recycle Bin) and hard drives.Recover loss data caused by disk accident, operation system crushes and other reasons. Flash download mac.
The FoneDog Data Recovery can recover any deleted data the quickest and the easiest way possible. This software is considered to be a professional data recovery software and that it can restore any type of files that you have from any sort of situation such as deleted file recovery, hard drive recovery, partition recovery, crashed windows or Mac, memory card recovery, and a flash drive recovery.
Also, the FoneDog Data Recovery can recover any data from any external device such as a hard drive, memory card, USB, a digital camera, and removable drives. It can also recover data from your computer. So, to give you a quick guide on how this program works, here is a quick step by step process you can follow.
Step 1. Install Program and Launch it on Computer
You can get the FoneDog Data Recovery tool by downloading it from our website. And then install it on your Mac computer.
Step 2. Choose the Type of Data and Device Storage
After the complete installation of the program, go ahead and run it on your computer. And from the main page of it, you will be able to choose on which device you would like to recover your deleted data or backup file. So here, you have to choose the external hard drive that you are working on. Then, simply choose the data that you would like to recover as well.
NOTE: You have to make sure that the connection of your external hard drive and your Mac is stable while you are on the process of recovering your data.
Step 3. Scanning Process
After choosing your external hard drive and the data that you want to recover, then you can go now and click on the Scan button. The FoneDog Data Recovery will then start scanning your device giving you the result basing on the option that you have chosen earlier.
NOTE: There are two ways to scan in this part. The Quick Scan can only take a few minutes to finish. And the Deep Scan which can take a longer period of time since it will scan thoroughly on your external hard drive.
![How Do You Reformat A Hard Drive For Mac How Do You Reformat A Hard Drive For Mac](https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/b/bd/Format-an-External-Hard-Drive-Step-21.jpg/aid1145367-v4-728px-Format-an-External-Hard-Drive-Step-21.jpg)
Step 4. Preview and Select Data to Retrieve Then Recover
And once that the scanning process is all done, all of the data will then be listed on your screen. From here, you can now go ahead and choose all of the data that you want to recover. And once that you are done choosing them, simply click on the Recover button below your screen.
Then, the recovery process will start so all you have to do from here is wait until such time that the process is complete.
Conclusion
As you can see, it is very easy to reformat your external hard drive for your Mac. All you need to do is to go through all of the steps that we have provided you and you will surely be done in no time. Also, just in case you happen to have deleted data from your hard drive, then you can easily have them back by using the FoneDog Data Recovery tool.
>Tricks >How to Reformat External Hard Drive Mac Compatibility
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by Shirly Chen, updated on 2020-08-28 to Mac Data Wipe
If you want to format hard drive partition or system volume on Mac, you are at the right place. In this article, we will introduce easy-to-use tools to help Mac users to format Mac hard drive partition or Mac volume. However, before format your Mac hard drive partition or volume, please back up your data to iCloud or a secondary hard disk drive. And please note that you can’t format the hard drive partition in which the macOS or OS X is installed. Now, let’s begin the process to format Mac hard drive partition.
Part 1: Format hard drive on Mac with MacClean360
Download MacClean360
Format hard disk and device on Mac
MacClean360 is an all-in-one Mac cleaner and manager. It offers a tool named “Disk Manager”. This tool can help you easily and quickly format hard drive or external device on Mac. But, the formatted data can be recovered by Mac data recovery software. However, if you want to quickly and securely format a hard drive on Mac, MacClean360 is your best choice.
Part 2: Use disk utility to format Mac hard drive partition or volume
Disk Utility is a built-in application in Mac OS or OS X. It allows Mac users to easily format hard drive partition or volume. You have no experience in formatting hard drive partition on Mac? Don’t worry, it is super easy and quick. Just launch Disk Utility on your Mac, then you will see all the hard drives and external devices on your Mac. Select the target hard drive partition and click 'Erase'. Disk Utility will quickly format selected the Mac hard drive partition.
Once the formatting process is finished, the Mac hard drive partition is properly formatted. But the data removed from the formatted Mac hard drive partition is still can be recovered. Mac data recovery software can easily recover the data that is erased by Disk Utility. If you want to permanently erase the data during the formatting process, you can try another way to format the Mac hard drive partition. The solution bellow can help you format Mac hard drive partition and permanently erase the data on the formatted Mac hard drive partition.
Part 3: Format Mac hard drive partition with data eraser
Mac data eraser – DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac can easily format Mac hard drive partition and erase all data permanently on the hard drive partition. During the formatting process, it will format the Mac hard drive partition first, then overwrite the disk space with blank data. Once the formatting process gets finished, the data on the formatted Mac hard drive partition is lost forever, just like you have reset the Mac hard drive partition to factory status. Download DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac here:
This Mac disk formatting software is pretty simple to use. Run it on your Mac, choose this mode 'Wipe Hard Drive'. Select the partition you want to format and click on 'Wipe Now' button.
This tool will quickly format the selected Mac hard drive partition and permanently erase all data information on the hard drive partition.
It is strongly recommended to format the Mac hard drive partition with DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac if you are going to sell or lend your Mac computer. Permanently destroy sensitive data, leave no room for data recovery. Both of the two Mac disk formatting tools are 100% safe, will not affect the service life of your hard drive. We recommend you to use DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac to format your Mac hard drive partition before you dispose your Mac or hard drive.
Other tools offered by DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac
Disk Manager - this tool can help you quickly format hard drive or external device on Mac. It also can help you rename hard drive or eject external device in safe mode.
Erase Files - selectively and permanently erase files from HDD, SSD, USB flash drive, memory card, digital camera.
Wipe Free Space - securely wipe free disk space of a hard drive to quickly and permanently erase deleted data on this hard drive without affecting the existing data.
How Do You Reformat A Hard Drive For Mac
DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac also can help you uninstall unwanted applications on Mac, and clean up internet browsers’ cookies, password, histories, etc. Download it here:
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