Im trying to format an external ssd 256gb hd that used to be the main disk in a windows machine corrupted by a virus. How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow. To format or reformat an external hard drive on mac, youll need the builtin disk management tool called disk utility. When you do this it usually erases all the content, so make a backup first. There are quite a few error codes that appear on os x regularly but apple. I have been trying to walk her through reformatting it but nothing is working. If you purchase an external hard drive as an addition to expand the storage space of your computer, most likely you would need to format it. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. How to format a drive for mac and pc compatibility macyourself. The hard drive is already formatted in mac os extended. How to format an external hard drive for mac youtube.
You probably dont need to erase, unless youre selling. How to fix error code 43 mac can t delete file external. Convert formatted drive from mac to windows info remo. Then, how to resolve the situation that my external hard drive says it needs to be formatted. No matter how robust, updated, or topnotch your operating system is, encountering system errors is inevitable, even for macs. How to fix mac error code 43 permanently techdevotee. External hard drives are handy tools in storing files, data and documents. Connect the raw external hard drive to your pc step 2. The disk utility gives no options for formatting under the erase. How to format an external drive for mac compatibility. Also when we buy a new usb or hard drive, it often comes with windows compatible not the mac so formatting it even needed in this case.
A misaligned or malfunctioning cable may be the cause of the problem, especially if you also have errors when trying to read from the external disk. While it is possible that your external hard drive may have come with bundled software that may be incompatible with newer operating systems, this is typically just back up software, and the drive is not dependent on that software to function. When trying to save large files in final cut pro, the hard drive would save numerous. You can diagnose and possibly fix issues using the builtin disk utility. You can help protect yourself from scammers by verifying that the contact is a microsoft agent or microsoft employee and that the phone number is an official microsoft global customer service number. There can be an issue with your external device and formatting it can fix it. The drive does not appear on the desktop or the finder.
This method will erase the data on your external hard drive as you need to format it to get it to be recognized. Guides to fix mac files wont copy to external hard drive. This is done by going into my computer, right clicking on the drive, clicking format, and then selecting the ntfs filesystem. But reformatting will delete all data stored on the hard drive, and most of the time, many important files are stored on the wd my passport for mac hard drive. If this fails, backup the data and format or erase the disk.
If the error message keeps on appearing, backup your data and format your disk. Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard drive. If the external hard drive is pre formatted for mac, disk management will list 3 partitions and you will not be able to delete the health efi system partition because its a protected partition. Error message when formatting a new drive external. Apr 14, 2020 by this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for mac and pc without losing any data. Yes, im trying to format it on a mac sorry, i thought i had posted in the mac section. Today i had it plugged in and cobian was backing up data onto the disk. The external hard drive becomes unreadable and corrupted due to carelessly disconnecting or powering down the drive without following the eject drive protocol.
Sep 19, 2014 she has a mac mini and a wd passport external hard drive. Oct 14, 2017 hi, this software helps you copy files from ntfs format to mac without formatting software link. The maximum individual file size for exfat is 16 eb. Now your external drive has been formatted to be fully compatible with apple macos, and you can edit, read, and write files to it as you want. I received a replacement 750gb external hard drive from western digital. Learning how to format an external drive on mac is necessary for numerous reasons. Whenever i tried to open it, windows showed me that my external hard drive was not formatted and asked me to format. Formatting an external hard drive for macwindows use.
Nov 21, 2017 and we usually perform formatting in our usb or external hard drive when we want to get rid of viruses, or we want to clean the disk as it was when we purchased it. Formatting external hard drive for 2 comp apple community. Cant transfer file from mac to external hard drive. Both mac os x and windows allow users to format their hard drives using builtin utilities. Most or we can say almost every external hard disk comes in ntfs windows nt file system format but ntfs format is not supported by mac os. The drive was originally used on a windows machine. If youve had your mac for quite some time, then youve probably encountered your own share of mac errors. Jan 30, 2009 when i modify a file and put it into an external hard drive, date modified section does not change.
Use default allocation size, and make sure quick format is checked or. Feb 08, 2020 now your external drive has been formatted to be fully compatible with apple macos, and you can edit, read, and write files to it as you want. You must be logged on as an administrator to perform these steps. All was well till i plugged it into the asus and now i can not open the hard drive. In this guide, well show you how to format an external hard drive so you can not only get rid of the.
Its good to have an external hard drive which can be used for backup and other purpose. One of them is that you might purchase a new usb flash drive which is preformatted for windows os and you will be unable to use it on your mac. Click start button and search commond, then rightclick one it and afterward press run as administrator. This is a simple procedure and is achieved the same way for all drive types and through all connections, be they usb, firewire, or thunderbolt. If you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between mac and pc is an often difficult but it doesnt need to be. Macrumors attracts a broad audience of both consumers and professionals interested in the latest technologies and products. I stopped working for a quick bite and when i returned to the computer, i had the message that windows had stopped this device because it has reported a problem code 43. How to format a drive with the apfs file system on macos. How to fix error code 43 mac can t delete file external hard drive. How to fix a corrupted and unreadable external hard drive. How to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. You might wish to troubleshoot an issue by formatting the hard disk.
If it does not you will need to rightclick and delete the volume first. If you work solely on a mac, but need to send files to someone working on a pc, your external hard drive needs to be set up for both operating systems. You just need to know how to format external hard drive for ps4. External hard drive not working with ipad or iphone using. You will find that you can format the drive in fat format on a windows machine or you can go to an apple store and get them to format the drive on a mac running an earlier operating system sierra or before. The windows system uses a hard drive with a different file system than the mac systems. Mar 15, 2017 plug the drive into pc and just delete the partition so you have the whole drive an unallocated space. Connection or damage issue about external hard drive. So if you are wondering how you may fix external hard drive not formatted error, you have come to the right place as this article discusses how you might be able to make the most out of such a situation.
To recover lost, deleted, inaccessible, unreadable, formatted and virusinfected data from external usb flash drives or other conventional storage devices, the hard drive. That said, if you are using smaller file sizes fat32 can suffice. External hard drives are widelyused in our daily life. Choose 1 partition from the volume scheme and then click on options. Usb external troubleshooter seagate support australia. How to safely move your iphoto library to another hard. No need to worry or try to claim warranty because your new external hard drive is fine. Fix error external hard drive not formatted and recover data. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. How to format a drive for mac and pc compatibility posted by ant on march 11th, 2012 43 comments if you have an external hard drive or usb flash drive that youd like to use on both macs and windows pcs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing. Forget the backup part, i guess what i need is an external hard drive that i can use in both mac and pc. Solved seagate external hard drive stopped on code 43. There can be different reasons for formatting a hard drive or an external device on mac. I used the format ms dos fat on the mac and erased the hard drive.
I tried to format my toshiba external hard drive to accept asus pc and macbook air files. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. Error message when formatting a new drive external drives. Then have a look at this page to fix the error and regain your usb files. How to fix mac error code 43 when copying files enigma software. Therefore, before you mount an external usb drive to a mac, make sure to check the. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac.
It shouldnt be such a pain to format a drive for a mac. Then, you can share external hard drive between mac and pc. In this video, ill show you how to fix error code 43 on macos. Any hard drive can be formatted for mac and here is how you do it.
There are various reasons why you might need to format external hard drives. Whenever i tried to open it, windows showed me that my external hard drive was not formatted and asked me to format it. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. There are several reasons why an external hard drive may not be accessible or detected when you connect it to your computer. Oct 14, 2016 so you need to check if the external hard drive in a readonly state or not. Heres how to format a dr ive if you are planning to use it with a mac. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. External lacie hard drive not getting detected, error code. Fix portable hard drive not recognized problem manually to solve the external hard drive not recognized program on computer, you can use the inbuilt disk management tool to find it out and get it to be recognized. The drive is currently formatted to work on my macbook, but that now that i want to format my wifes macbook to use it, its looking like i need to erase the contents of the volume to do so. Open device manager by clicking the start button, clicking control panel, clicking system and security, and then, under system, clicking device manager. Windows formatted hard drives have either ntfs file system of an fat32 file system. However, it just wont recognize it, even though the hard drive is showing up on your computer. We use flash drives, memory cards and other kinds of external hard drives for photos, videos, documents and so on.
Ive searched around but kinda confused as to how to format the drive. How to format an external hard drive the easy way in 2020. Disk utility in macos high sierra or later can erase most disks and volumes for mac using either the newer apfs apple file system format or the older mac os extended format, and it automatically chooses a compatible format for you. Trouble formatting external hard drive macrumors forums. Lear more about mac error 43 code and solve this issue permanently in 3. Power outage while you are copying files to the external drive abrupt removal of the external drive from the usb port bad sectors virus attacks. Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on mac. How to fix raw external hard drive without formatting. How to fix unformatted hard drives in windows 1087 easily. Hard drive formatting what happens in the background.
However, if you want to convert ntfs to exfat to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc, 3 steps are required. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and. Then, you need to choose the best file system for your external hard drive and follow these steps. Mar 31, 2020 if you buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between mac and pc is an often difficult but it doesnt need to be. Download data recovery for windows download data recovery for mac.
We also boast an active community focused on purchasing decisions and technical aspects of the iphone, ipod, ipad, and mac platforms. Formatting a drive will erase all data and partitions on the disk. Format external hard drive on mac for mac and windows. When the disk utility recognizes it the drive is read only. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. If you see code 28 this may work for others codes too, i. My passport wont format external drives for mac wd. Dec 29, 2015 follow these instructions if you plan to share an external hard drive between pc and mac computers. Errors such as the one described in the scenario above are other sadder reasons why hard drive formatting is done. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc.
One of the biggest ones is the mac error code 43 that appears when you try to delete or move a file. Dec 26, 2019 if you need to use a hard drive on different operating systems such as windows, mac and linux, you might need to format it each time. Learn how to use macos recovery to reinstall the mac operating system on your builtin drive or an external drive. However, formatting the mac hard drive without backing up its files, leads to huge amount of data loss. Mac os x has always had a reputation of being a way simpler. Best solutions to fix external hard drive not formatted error. If you keep getting the error, youll need to back up the data on the drive and reformat it. It can easily restore all files of any format like documents, presentations, media files, outlook files, pdf, archive files.
Just purchased a 2tb hitachi xl2000 external hard drive. You can choose to format a usb drive, sd card, or external hard drive with apfs. However, if first aid is unable to fix wd my passport for mac hard drive not mounting error, the last solutions is to reformat the hard drive. Ntfs format hard disks can be connected to mac os but the drive will run with readonly permission which means you can only copy from hard disk but cant add or. You can repair the unreadable external drive with a quick scan on the pc with the help of the disk checking utility and its drive repair function. Mac os extended journalled should work fine with high sierra even if you cant format the disk on your own mac. Buying and using an external hd is one thing, getting the most out of it is quite another. How to reinstall macos from macos recovery apple support. Copy files from hard disk to mac without formatting youtube. Oct 25, 2014 hello, i have a wd my passport external hard drive. You might also like 5 easy ways to repair hard disk. How to fix wd my passport for mac hard drive not mounting. External hard drive not formatted you need to format the disk in drive before you can use it recently, i ran into a problem while accessing my seagate 160 gb external hard drive. Simply put, your ps4 isnt recognizing the file system of your drive, which is most probably.
I did restart the computer as you suggested, but again received the message the. How to format a drive with the apfs file system on macos sierra. One way to do this is to convert the raw hard drive to ntfs using the cmd command method. Complete guide to fix erase process has failed on mac. I have a seagate external hard drive which has been working fine. How to fix mac error code 43 ultimate pro guide unlockboot. Common mac error codes error code mac software tested. The previous defunct hd was also fat32, which i did not realize upon receiving and using. Before i go any further in backup my files, i want to format it based on a mac since its primary os. I removed everything from the hard drive, put it on my pc. Otherwise, you should attempt to back up your data, reformat the disk. Usb external troubleshooter seagate support australia new.
However, this is one of the many reasons why you should know how to format the drive for both mac and windows. All was well till i plugged it into the asus and now i can not open the hard drive to put the files back on it. Apr 23, 2014 its a good idea to backup your data for your mac using time machine. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. How to format an external hard drive for mac and windows. Well show you everything you need to know about the. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step. To fix the error code 43 for usb or other devices, there are totally of five effective ways to apply. The socalled code 43 error message, for example, is primarily associated with. Tech support scams are an industrywide issue where scammers trick you into paying for unnecessary technical support services.
You need to use a mac or pc to reformat the drive to a compatible format. If your external hard drive is written in a different format, you cant view the content using an iphone or ipad. Complete guide to external hard drive format error easeus. How to fix external hard drive io device error 3 solutions. Mac files wont copy to external hard drive how to fix. Lets take a look at the different types of formats, and which are best for video production. I have a mac and downloaded and formatted my 3tb hard drive to. Open the disk utility and select the external drive. Aid tool again and if the problem still persists, backup your data and format the disk.