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#FORMAT WD EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC AND WINDOWS HOW TO#
#FORMAT WD EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC AND WINDOWS WINDOWS#

Select the Format (file system) from the drop-down menu.

Assign the name that will be given to the drive.

The Erase dialog window will now appear.

After selecting the appropriate drive, additional option buttons will become available on the top part of the Disk Utility window.

In the example below, the one to be selected would be WD Elements SE. It is usually directly above the name of the drive. Choose the drive listing that is farthest to the left (Not indented) for the drive to be formatted. Typically there are two listings for each drive unless more than one partition exists on a particular drive. From the left-side pane, choose the drive that is to be re-formatted. From the Applications folder, open Utilities, and lastly double-click on Disk Utility. Choose Applications from the left-side panel.

Double left-click on the Mac HD, the internal Mac hard drive visible on the top-right corner of the desktop screen.

Connect the WD drive to the Mac computer.

#FORMAT WD EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC AND WINDOWS HOW TO#

For instructions on how to do this, please see the instructions below:

There are two easy ways to format a drive to use ExFAT is by using macOS's built-in Disk Utility using Erase (Step 4) or Partition (Step 7).

(instructions will appear below this table)ġ0.11 (El Capitan) and above - Recommended Methodġ0.10 (Yosemite) and earlier- Recommended MethodĮxFAT in macOS 10.11 (El Capitan) and above This could quickly damage the drive's partition and corrupt the data on the drive. Once the process begins, ALL THE DATA ON THE DRIVE WILL BE LOST!Ĭritical: Western Digital recommends that when formatting a drive that it be the only drive present on the system to limit occurences of accidental data loss.Ĭritical: Never attempt to connect any external drive to multiple computers at the same time. This process is Data Destructive and cannot be undone. The easiest way to format the drive to FAT32 or ExFAT is by using macOS's built-in Disk Utility for FAT32, or both macOS and Windows' built-in tools, Disk Utility or Disk Management respectively for exFAT.Ĭritical: The instructions in the article below are designed to help repartition and format a hard drive. For more information about what these limitations are please see Answer ID 20778: File and partition size limitations using the FAT32 file system (Windows and Mac). This is a file system limitation that affects both macOS's and Window's, and the only workaround is to format the drive to exFAT. FAT32 has several limitations, including a 4 GB per-file limit.

#FORMAT WD EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC AND WINDOWS WINDOWS#

Most WD Drives come formatted in the NTFS (Windows) or HFS+ (macOS) format.įor a hard drive to be able to be read from and written to on both a Windows and macOS computer, it must be formatted to ExFAT or FAT32 file format. This is useful if a drive is being used under both Operating System (OS) to move files between the two environments. This allows the drive to be used on both Windows and macOS.*ENDĪ Western Digital external hard drive can be used on both Windows and macOS. The system disk must have the MBR partition style if you’re running a 32-bit version of Windows.This answer explains how to format a drive in the exFAT or FAT32 file system. The only disadvantage with GPT is that only 64-bit versions of Windows can be on the system disk (the hard drive that Windows is installed on). GPT (GUID Partition Table) is the newer partition style that has become commonplace with more modern computers, which use UEFI instead of BIOS to boot your system.The BIOS/UEFI is what loads all of the primary drivers, hard drives, as well as your Windows OS. While older Windows PC’s (that have a BIOS) run perfectly fine, it’s becoming obsolete on new PC’s (which use UEFI). MBR (Master Boot Record) is an older partition style that has been around for quite some time.While GPT is often used for hard drives with more than 2 TB of space, there are other advantages, as well. When you format a hard drive on Windows 10, you are prompted to choose GPT or MBR as the partition style. What’s the difference between GPT and MBR? Volume Label: Enter the name you wish to label the drive as.Select the Format of the drive volume with the following settings.Right-click the space that says Unallocated, select New Simple Volume…, and then follow the on-screen prompts.MBR for hard drives with a capacity of less than 2 TB.GPT for hard drives with a capacity larger than 2 TB.When assigning the drive letter, be sure that it’s different than that of hard drives that are currently in use.In these cases, they get formatted and are assigned a drive letter.

Some external USB hard drives don’t have the option to be initialized.

Right-click the disk that says Not Initialized or Offline, then select Initialize Disk or Online.

Click the Windows icon, type Disk Management, then click Create and format hard drive partitions.