

- FORMAT A NEW EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC HOW TO
- FORMAT A NEW EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC PC
- FORMAT A NEW EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC WINDOWS 7
- FORMAT A NEW EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC MAC
If you newly switch from Windows PC to Mac, you may get confused with external hard drive, partition, container, and volume in Disk Utility.
FORMAT A NEW EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC MAC
Part 2: Understand external hard drive, container, volume and partition on Mac Well, if you find that you can't format your disk due to the loss of some fatal meta files, you are bound to stop to recover your data and the iBoysoft Data Recovery can help you find the lost meta files. Well done! Finished erasing on disk2! Now I believe you have master another method to format your external hard drive. 'disk 2' is the IDENTIFIER, or rather, the target disk that I want to format. 'TD' is the name that I give to the new disk and it can be replaced by any word you like.Ĥ. HFS+ can be replaced by other file system formats, and here provide some references like APFS, JHFS+, FAT32 and ExFAT.ģ. There's no limitation of uppercase or lower case.Ģ. To format a single volume to hfs+, like disk2s1, then the operating command is:ġ. Step 3: Input the 'erase' command: diskutil erasedisk + new file system + new disk name + identifier.įor example: to format the whole disk 2 to hfs+, then the operating command is: Step 2: Input 'diskutil list', press Enter to list out all your disks. Step 1: Launchpad → Other → Terminal, and click Terminal. Method II: Format an external hard drive through 'Terminal' Compared with that, if a volume gets formatted, only the one that gets formatted will be deleted, and that's to say, only the data of the formatted volume will be deleted. The most distinguishing difference of formatting between a volume and a external hard drive is that: if a external hard drive gets formatted, then all the volumes inside the external hard drive, which means all the data, will be deleted. Steps to format a volume are 99% the same as that of a external hard drive. Step 5: Click Done, and congratulations that you have finished all the steps. At that time, there will be an icon of your new-established volume on the desktop. Note: As for our example to erase a whole external hard drive, the original physical volume 'X' and 'Y' will have been deleted and a new volume 'Untitled' will have been established. Step 4: Click Erase to format your target disk.

Part 1: Two methods to format external hard drive on Mac Method I: Format an external hard drive through 'Disk Utility' (newbie friendly) Click Go on the top tool bar, and select Utilities.
FORMAT A NEW EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC HOW TO
Then how to format a external hard drive on Mac? Here are two methods for those people who urgently need to erase a external hard drive.Ĭonnect the external hard drive to the computer.
FORMAT A NEW EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC WINDOWS 7

Connect SSD Drive to the Mac USB-C or USB port Open the Disk Utility in Mac. For the time machine, you have to format the SSD from the default shipped format.

When there are bad sectors which don't store the data of bootstrap procedure, but of some important private files, people expect for formatting and backing up to make these files accessible again when people's hard disks can no longer write in further, they expect for erasing disk to pave way for new items to write when there are file system errors in people's hard disks resulting from frequent hot swapping, they expect for formatting to give rebirth to these dying disks and make them in use again. Of course, there are different occasions where people want to get their external hard drives erased. 'Format', a word which is connected with 'all data clear' and which is different from what it is called so on Windows, has another name on Mac, 'erase'.
