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#Reformat a wd elements for mac for mac#
#Reformat a wd elements for mac mac os#
#Reformat a wd elements for mac update#
#Reformat a wd elements for mac windows#

Connect the external drive or the USB drive to the Mac. Disk utility - the MacOS utility application can help you with this. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another.Īll is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your Mac.

Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them.

#Reformat a wd elements for mac mac os#

Keep in mind that Mac OS can generally read other file formats, but for the best performance and to create a bootable disk, formatting exclusively for your Mac based on its version is required.įormatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. In a few simple steps you are ready to go and can save your back-up files to the external drive, keeping your information safe and giving you peace of mind. Reformatting an external hard drive for use with Mac OS is not as difficult as it might seem.

#Reformat a wd elements for mac for mac#

Part 2: Format External Hard Drive for Mac with Disk Utility Luckily, there are third-party tools to help you do so. NTFS: As the default file system in Windows, it can only read by Mac OS and writing to it is not available.

#Reformat a wd elements for mac windows#

Nevertheless, this older file system is limited to no more than 4GB and there might be security issue and disk errors.ĮxFAT: It is similar to ExFAT which can be read by both Windows and Mac, but it can store more than 4GB files. It enables you to regularly share files with your friends. MS-DOS FAT (aka FAT32): In addition to Mac, it can also be written and read by Linux and Windows. You can encrypt it so that no one can access the contents on your drive. Mac OS Extended (encrypted) would be an ideal option if you probably carry your laptop or external drive here and there.

#Reformat a wd elements for mac update#

Mac OS Extended (Journaled/HFS+): If you didn't update your Mac OS to High Sierra, the default file system on your Mac shoule be Mac OS Extended. What's more, it is compatible with SSD and flash storage devices only. However, it won't be readable and usable on machines that are not running Mac High Sierra, Windows or Linux PCs. Which one is right for your circumstance? We'll describe them here, and you'll be able to make your choice after reading the details.ĪPFS: This is the default file system in Macs with High Sierra. There are a few file formats you can use, but it depends on the purpose you want to use the drive for. The most important, you should decide which format to use.

Select "OK" in the completion window to finish.Part 1: Which File Format You Should Choose?īefore you begin formatting the drive, there are a few things to do.

The process will take less than a minute.

Select NTFS for the File System type and check the Quick Format checkbox.

NOTE: Be sure you selected the correct drive icon for the “My Passport” external drive.

Right click on the drive icon for the external drive and choose " Format" from the menu.

In Windows 8, you can choose the "This PC" tile from the start screen.

In Windows 7, this can be done by clicking the start button and choosing "Computer" from the right panel of the menu.

Open " Computer" (there are multiple ways this can be done).

Connect the external drive to the computer.

If you have already saved files to the drive that you want to keep then don’t format the drive. WARNING: All data on the external hard drive will be erased by this procedure. NTFS partitions have a file size limit only limited by the partition size. To get around this problem or prevent it from being a problem later you could format the drive as an NTFS partition. You could save the file to an NTFS partition or a DVD. When trying to copy files to the drive you may get prompted to do a disk clean up but this will not resolve the problem. This may be a problem for larger files, such as video files, disk images, or large Outlook PST files. The maximum file size on a FAT32 partition is 4gb. A new Western Digital external drive is configured by default out of the box as a FAT32 partition.