
- Format seagate for mac and pc how to#
- Format seagate for mac and pc install#
- Format seagate for mac and pc driver#
- Format seagate for mac and pc manual#
- Format seagate for mac and pc portable#
The quickest way to do this is a simple Spotlight search (click the search icon on the upper right corner), or go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. They might be different if your Mac has a different version. Note: The tutorial and screenshots below are based on macOS Sierra 10.12.5.
Format seagate for mac and pc how to#
How to Format an External Drive for Mac (from NTFS to Mac OS Extended) The problem is that on macOS, you can’t work with files saved on an NTFS drive unless you use a paid app like Paragon NTFS for Mac. What is NTFS? I’m not going to explain here you can read more on Wikipedia. I then right-clicked the external drive icon on Mac desktop > Get Info. If I wanted to use it with Mac OS or Time Machine backup (which is my intent), I’ll need to format the drive for my Mac. It brought me to a webpage on Seagate’s site, where it clearly indicated the drive was initially set up to work with a Windows PC. Since I wanted to use it on Mac, I clicked the blue logo with the text “Start_Here-Mac”. When I opened it, the default content was all there.

When I connected the Seagate to my Mac, the drive icon showed up like this. Three weeks ago, I bought a brand new 2TB Seagate Expansion to backup my MacBook Pro before I updated it to the latest macOS. Most External Hard Drives Are Initiated with NTFSĭuring the last several years, I’ve used a few external drives, including a 500GB WD My Passport, 32GB Lexar flash drive, and a few others. I highly recommend you also create multiple partitions. Pro tip: If your external drive has a large volume, like mine – a 2TB Seagate Expansion. The operation will erase all data and your files will be gone for good. Important note: If you have useful files stored on the external drive, be sure to copy or transfer them to another safe place prior to formatting. Just follow this easy step-by-step guide and you’re all set. In this post, I’m going to show you how to format your external drive for a Mac-compatible file system i.e. Apple Mac machines support a different file system. That’s all because it’s been initialized with Windows NT File System (NTFS), which is primarily for PCs. But somehow, macOS doesn’t allow you to write data to the drive.

Format seagate for mac and pc portable#
To format an external hard drive on your Mac paraphrased from here: Find your external drive and select it.So, you just bought a new external hard drive or a portable SSD and wanted to use it on your Mac. A perfect example of this is at: May 27 '14 at 6: Aren't disks just disks? Format Seagate hard drive to FAT32 or exFAT? Please consider looking for something that has the official "Made for Mac" logo. Use FAT32 if: FAT32 is not recommended for modern operating systems and computers.

Format seagate for mac and pc driver#
You can use exFAT if: However, Seagate recommends installing the Paragon driver when sharing hard drives between operating systems.
Format seagate for mac and pc install#
Install the Paragon driver for Mac for compatibility with Macs. Your newly formatted hard drive should now be visible on the left-side column of the Finder window. How to Reformat Seagate External Hard Drive? It's the blue button in the bottom-right corner of the progress window that appears once the hard drive has finished formatting. Depending on the size of the hard drive and the speed of your Mac, allow several minutes for the process to complete. A progress bar will appear at the top of the window to track the format process. Easy steps to reformat Seagate external hard driveĭisk Utility will start formatting the drive. It's in the lower-right corner of the pop-up window. This is the default partition scheme for drives formatted in the OS X Extended format.
Format seagate for mac and pc manual#
Seagate Backup Plus Desktop User Manual - Optional Formatting and PartitioningĬlick Erase.

If you don't see two entries for the hard drive itself and the volume or partition, click "View" in the upper-right corner and select Show All devices. In the left-hand column of the Disk Utility app, click the "Seagate" drive to select it.
