How do i reformat a external hard drive back to fat32

i have an external hard drive that worked on windows then i installed it onto a mac book pro laptop and i emptied it now it does not work how do i reformat it with a mac computer

Drive Preparation for MS-DOS (FAT)
1.  Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to MSDOS. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to MBR then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

Similar Messages

  • How do I reformat my External Hard Drive (Seagate Backup Plus).

    Hello everyone. How do I reformat my External Hard Drive (Seagate Backup Plus Portable Device). I accidentally clicked to use it with Time Machine and my hard drive is of little use now. When I open my hard drive, it just shows 'backup', the same thing when I open it with Windows. Thinking of reformatting it back to be used to Mac and Windows. And not use it again with Time Machine. New to Apple, appreciate the help

    Hello,
    "Thinking of reformatting it back to be used to Mac and Windows. And not use it again with Time Machine"
    If you want to format the External drive as universally compatible, your best bet is to format it as exFAT. Note that reformatting the drive erases all contents of the drive.
    1) Open Disk Utility located in /Applications/Utilities/ (or simply type it in spotlight and the application will show up)
    2) Select the external Hard drive
    3) Click the 'erase' tab.
    4) Under format: select exFAT
    5) Click "Erase" in the lower right hand corner to reformat the drive.

  • How can i reformat my external hard drive without loosing any data?

    how can i reformat my external hard drive without loosing any data?

    Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
    It's impossible to format a hard drive without losing the data. One thing you can do before formatting is to copy the files from the external drive to your internal drive, and then, format the external drive. After formatting, copy the files to the external drive again, and everything will be as before formatting it

  • How can I reformat my external hard drive from the time machine format to regular format?

    Ok so when first starting out I got an external hard drive for my time machine, little did I know I would run out of space really fast and would need to buy a bigger and better hard drive. Now that I did that, I have my old hard drive that I would like to use for copying material form my laptop to my desktop. However, it is still set as my time machine and tries to back up my lap top every time I plug it in. Also, it says that about half of it is still filled with stuff. I erased everything on it. I just want to reformat it so that it is like I just bought it.

    Tirrel wrote:
    I had the same idea as you however when I tried going to Disk Utility and I tried to erase it an error message came up telling me that it is unable to erase.
    Unable to erase, or unable to unmount?
    If Time Machine is trying to back up to it, or some other process is using it, Disk Utility won't be able to unmount it.   Turn Time Machine OFF; if you have the drive open via the Finder or any other app, close it or quit the app(s).
    At worst, start up from your Install disc or other alternate source and erase it from there.  If you're not sure how to do that, see the yellow box in #1 of Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks.

  • How do I reformat my external hard drive from fat32 to HFS??

    I have an iomega hdd 160gb hard drive and need to move files larger than 4gb to my external hard drive. Hard drive is currently formatted to fat32. How in the world can I reformat this drive to the mac friendly hfs so that I can backup my files?? Any help would be appreciated.....

    Hi, Amy!
    Connect the drive, start up, launch Disk Utility, click to highlight the drive on the left side of the window, click the Erase tab over on the right side, name the volume, select Mac OS Extended for the format, check the box to install the OS 9 drivers, and click on the "Erase" button to execute the reformatting.
    Please note that reformatting will erase any data that may be stored on that drive.
    Gary

  • How do I reformat an external hard drive from an IMac 10.4.9?

    I am new to Mac, having migrated from PC recently. I just purchased a new external hard drive but it is formated as NTFS (read only) and I need to reformat it as FAT 32. Does anyone know how to perform this reformat from my new IMac? Sorry, but I am totally new to Mac and I need all the help I can get. Your assistance will be greatly appreciated. Thanking you in advance.
    IMac   Mac OS X (10.4.9)  

    Hi rubenrodz;
    May I welcome you to the Apple Discussion Forums.
    Just be aware that while FAT32 can be used for both the Mac and the PC, it does have limitations. You can't have files larger then 4 GB. Plus FAT32 doesn't keep all of the Mac files.
    If you are only going to use the disk on the Mac if would be better to format it as HFS+, the native Mac format.
    Allan

  • How should I reformat my external hard drive?

    I have just purchased a new 21.5" iMac and I will be moving from PC to iMac. I currently have a 2.5TB external hard drive which I have connected to my PC laptop that I use to store and watch movies. My question is how should I format/partition my external hard drive so that I can use it with my new iMac? The external hard drive will solely be used with my new iMac (it won't be connected/used with my laptop again) and I am ok with losing the data on the external hard drive as I have backed up the data currently on it onto another hard drive. I have tried to research what format to use but I am a little confused as to which one is the best and I am looking for some advice.

    Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
    (73546)

  • How do i reformat an external hard drive for mac

    i just bought a new external hard drive to back up my mac but it is not formatted for mac yet

    You can do that in Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities).
    With your new drive attached, choose it on the left. Choose the Partition tab. Decide if you want one or more partitions. Give each partition a name and choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the format. Then click on Options and choose GUID partition scheme. Click on Apply. Your new hard drive will be erased and formatted properly - when done, it is ready for whatever you want to put on it (you do not need any software that may be on the drive currently).

  • How do I reformat my external hard drive from operating on a mac to a PC?

    I have a Lacie 1TB hard drive that was initially formatted for a mac, but now I need to reformat it for a PC. I've read some reformatting forums, and I've gone on discmgmt.msc to assign a letter to the partition but I can't. It doesn't show up on my computer
    at all. I don't have access to a mac. How can I change my hard drive?
    Thanks!

    Similar problem.
    I have a toshiba 500gb external hdd. I formatted it to a mac and then sold the mac. Now I want to reformat it back to a pc, but when in disk management every option is greyed out besides help. On a few of the partitions the delete option is available, but there's
    one where it's not available. I wanted to try to save the files, but at this point I don't even care, I just want to external hdd to reformat. I know this thread is really old, but hopefully someone can help me out. Thanks!

  • How do i reformat a external hard drive and how do i partition a drive?

    hi,
    i have a seagate free agent desk 1.5 tb external harddrive! i have the back up software installed on the home pc. i have a macbook now! so i still want to be able to use the pc for photos and stuff because if i were to transfer everything onto the macbook i wouldnt have much room to spare. so the pictures are all on the pc.
    this is my problem: i have a pc and a mac that both need a external harddrive for backing up things. so i was going to set up time machine, but it said i need to use a different format so i need to re-format the drive, into a format that is mac and windows readable. is there any format that allows me to do that? the drive is currently in nfts format!
    i was thinking that if i partioned the drive i could format one side mac and the other nfts! does anyone know if this is possible? i need to find out! i have a dell windows xp sp3 i have a macbook osx10.6.8. does anyone have any step by step steps? in order for time machine to work i have to reformat everything (witch will delete every thing on my external harddrive). so is it possible to reformat the other side to nfts? i was thinking i would do the reformate/partion on the mac. can you do it on the mac? or the pc? for free?
    thanks all your help would be nice because i dont want to call apple because i am past the 90 support.
    austin

    Item #5 of this post implies that Time Machine is happiest with a drive with a "partition map scheme" of either APM or GUID.  I'm not sure if either of those is compatible with NTFS.  It might be better just to get another disk drive.

  • HT3764 How to reformat an external hard drive using Snow Lepard to use for Time Machine

    How to reformat an external hard drive using Snow Lepard to use for Time Machine

    Use the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder to erase it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with GUID as the partition map format(or APM if you're using a PowerPC Mac running 10.5).
    (73291)

  • How do I partition my external hard drive without losing data?

    How do I partition my external hard drive without losing the data already on it? I've been using it with Time Machine on my old computer, but want to use it as a regular drag-and-drop type back up on my new computer. Is there any way to basically split the hard drive so I can still access the Time Machine backups on my old computer, but also be able to use it with my new mac? Thanks!

    If you reformat the drive all data is lost.
    The only way to save the data is to copy it somewhere else during the reformat.
    Drag & drop will not backup things correctly.
    I suggest you set up partition for each Mac and then point Time Machine to each of the partition for each of the Macs.

  • Greeting,  I want to reformat my external hard drive using Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted ) but before formatting it, I want to make sure that if I loose the hard drive or the hard drive get stolen, no one will be able to retrieve or recover the in

    Greeting,
    I want to reformat my external hard drive using Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted ) but before formatting it, I want to make sure that if I loose the hard drive or the hard drive get stolen, no one will be able to retrieve or recover the information on it so could you tell me what kind of encryption will be used or is there any way to recover the information?
    Thanks!

    I think FileVault is used to encryp internal hard drive but I wanna encrypt an external hard drive with Mac OS Extended Journaled Encrypted which is completely different!

  • I just had to reformat the external hard drive that houses my iPhoto library, then restore it from a backup. Now Time Machine is telling me my backup hard drive suddenly does not have the space to complete a backup. I also noticed when I go in to Time Mac

    I just had to reformat the external hard drive that houses my iPhoto library, then restore it from a backup. Now Time Machine is telling me my backup hard drive suddenly does not have the space to complete a backup. I also noticed when I go in to Time Machine, there are only about 5 backups recorded on the ext. hard drive. There were many more before. Any idea what happened and if I have to buy a new back up hard drive?

    Hallo  Kieth ,
    I am not quite ready to restore the full iphoto library , as I have days of work re - imputting titles,descriptions and enhancement . I hope that your suggestion works , as I use my Macbook basically to work with digital photography. Through time , I will need to delete my library to recover more disc space and I would hate to have to spend more time re - imputting titles and descriptions all over again .
    Thanks for your interest and advice.
    regards  - Alan

  • I have a new MAcBook Air and my photos don't fit on the internal hard drive.  I want to store my photos on an external hard drive which I will connect to my Air when using Iphoto.  How do I set an external hard drive as the default drive?

    I have a new MAcBook Air and my photos don't fit on the internal hard drive.  I want to store my photos on an external hard drive which I will connect to my Air when using Iphoto.  How do I set an external hard drive as the default drive in Iphoto?

    Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
    1. Quit iPhoto
    2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
    3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
    4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
    Regards
    TD

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