How you format a Mac hard drive is entirely dependent on what kind of drive you plan on formatting. For instance, is the hard drive internal or external? And if internal, has it been partitioned or are you looking to reformat the entire system to factory state? Whatever your formatting situation, this how-to guide will cover each of these step-by-step.
Before you go messing around in the Disk Utility application, make sure you know what the drive is going to be used for. If it’s an external hard drive, for instance, do you plan on hooking it up solely to Macs or Windows PCs as well? Each one has its own compatible format, so you’ll have to be careful which you choose. FAT 32 is the most compatible disk format which is why it’s the most widely used on USB thumb drives — it’s compatible with both Mac and Windows PCs. HFS+ is the native Mac OS file system, and NTFS is Windows’ (Macs can read what’s on NTFS-formatted drives, but they cannot write).
Best Video Software for the Mac How To Run MacOS High Sierra or Another OS on Your Mac Best Graphic. And back up your data when formatting or partitioning disk. Mini Tool Partition Free does. At the end of the process, you can format the external hard drive by using Disk Management or MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition. Both are OK to help format your external hard drive. Both are OK to help format your external hard drive. A hard disk can contain a single partition, making use of all the space it contains, or it can be split into multiple partitions. In order to store data on a partition, it needs a filesystem. Once a partition has been formatted, this combination of partition and filesystem is known as a volume.
Before you start formatting any hard drives, make sure you’ve backed up your data! Formatting an external hard drive will delete any information on the device, likewise reformatting your system will essentially bring your Mac back to a clean factory state, thus removing all information you’ve stored on it. Conclusion: Be sure to backup first.
Best Mac Partition SoftwareFormatting an external hard drive or internal hard drive partition:
Partition For MacReformatting your internal system hard drive:
Reformatting your internal drive means a fresh start; the drive will look like it just came off the factory line. Those who usually want to reformat the entire internal drive are generally looking to get rid of any personal information so they can sell the device, or perhaps they’re looking to clear their system after downloading some unsavory software off a certain P2P network.
Either way, you’ll need your Mac OS X installation DVD that came with your Apple system, as you’ll be booting your computer from this disk to reformat your internal drive.
And that’s how to format a Mac hard drive! Leave any questions below. And if you want to know how to partition a Mac hard drive, we’ve covered that as well.
Formatting hard drives and external hard drives is usually a fairly straightforward process. The two most popular operating systems, Windows and Mac OS both have formatting utilities built-in, which makes formatting external drives even more convenient. However, with all of the different drive manufacturers, interfaces and other compatibility and formatting issues that hard drives can have, sometimes the best choice is to use specialty formatting apps and utilities.
The Windows Disk Management function, pictured above, allows Windows users to simply format and partition external drives. However, there are times when it simply doesn’t work very well. For example, the drive that you are trying to select for formatting may not be recognized by the utility, or it may be greyed out and not clickable.
If you are unable to get a hard drive formatted or partitioned correctly using the built-in apps that are offered by Microsoft and Apple, then your next step may be to try and format the drive directly, using command line. If you’re comfortable using command line, then you may want to check out our guide on how to format external hard drives to FAT32.
Additionally, your computer may not recognize the external hard drive whatsoever. If this is happening, this guide may be useful.
In those cases where a hard drive is simply not formatting, partitioning, etc., you may want to consider using a specialty hard drive formatting utility, which will often times make things simpler. In many cases, these utilities are often more effective than the built-in options that Windows and OS X offer as well.
EaseUS Partition Master Home Edition
If you need to manage partitions, copy partitions or even create boot disks, EaseUS Partition Master Free Edition is an excellent utility that can handle all of that and more.
Format Hdd For Mac Using Minitool Partition Tool
Currently one of the highest ranked hard drive utilities on many websites, this lightweight Windows app is a bit more intuitive than the built-in Windows Disk Management function, offering several additional options and features.
You can resize or move partitions, merge partitions, check partitions, wipe partitions, format partitions and change the label. If you need to perform some more advanced tasks like convert the partition or clone it, you’ll have to upgrade to the paid version.
MiniTool Partition Wizard
MiniTool Partition Wizard Free is a freeware disk partitioning and formatting utility that is simple to use and effective. The interface is quite straightforward and the software is excellent at making complex formatting options simple.
It supports Windows 10, just about all file system formats, UEFI and EFI boot, MBR and GPT disks, RAID storage, and SSDs. You can use it to extend your system partition, migrate your OS from a standard HDD to a SSD, convert file system, and lots more.
Mac Free Partition ToolParagon Partition Manager Free
Paragon Partition Manager free is another great little utility that supports Windows 10 and has a lot of features. It’s four basic functions: backup and recovery, partition manager, disk wiper and drive copy.
What I like about Paragon is that the each function in the software has its own wizard. For those who are uncomfortable with making these kinds of changes, the software does a good job of easing you through the process. They also have a paid version that supports more features and works on bigger drives.
![]() AOMEI Partition Assistant
The last recommended partition manager is AOMEI Partition Assistant. It’s pretty much got all the same features as the other programs mentioned above and it also has a freeware version.
It’s also regularly updated and supports Windows 10. Some options will be available in the free version while others will require the paid version. This is true for all of the programs mentioned above. If you only need to perform a one-time task and one program doesn’t work for you, I suggest trying another one before making any purchase.
HP Disk Storage Format Utility
While the other software on this list focus specifically on external hard drive formatting, the HP Disk Storage Formatter specializes in USB devices such as flash drives. This ultra simple formatting utility has just a few options, but it is effective and has received some great reviews.
Partition Software Mac
Overall, the formatting utilities that are offered by Windows and OS X will format hard drives, but there may be cases when they will fail to format a hard drive correctly. The next option is to use command line, but that’s more complex and not for everyone. Using the variety of hard drive formatting and partitioning utilities featured in this post, you should have no problems getting hard drives or even USB flash drives formatted correctly. Enjoy!
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