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!

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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 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 do you dump a external hard drive from PC to mac

How do i dump my external hard drive from a PC to my Mac

If you don't see the external HD when you connect it to the Mac, then you need to use Disk Utility to format the XHD to a FAT32 drive. Once done it will read on the Mac and PC without any problems.

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 can I use my external hard drive from PC to Mac without reformatting???

Ok, so I am computer illiterate. I have always used PC's and have just bought a MacBook. When I plug in my external hard drive into my new Mac, it says it needs to be reformatted to use with Mac, which would cause all data to be erased. Is there anyway to get around this?
Please help me!

OK... as Woggledog indicated, OS X cannot write to NTFS formatted drives. NTFS is a proprietary Microsoft format. Conversely, Windows can neither read nor write to an OS X formatted drive.
Both Windows and OS X can read and write to FAT32 (this is a fairly old format). The down side to FAT32 is that the largest file you can work with is 4GB. That is probably fine for most people... but if you're working with large files (videos, virtual drive images, large backup files, etc...) FAT32 is not suitable. There are applications that you can purchase for both Macs and Windows machines that will allow them to read and write to the other format.
An immediate option provided you have the space on either your PC or Mac is to create a folder on either machine and move everything from your external drive into that folder. Then you can format the drive to FAT32 and then copy everything back over to the external drive (and delete it from your Mac or PC's internal drive). It might take some time depending on how much data you have... but you'll only have to do it once... and this is assuming you have enough space on one of you machines to copy the data from your external drive.

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.

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 can I use my external hard drive on both pc and mac, but also being able to use it to back up my mac data?

I want to be able to transfer some of my files from my laptop to my macbook, but not all of them. I have a NTFS external hard drive and I have heard about reformatting it so that it can read/write across both systems, but can I still use this hard drive to back up the data on my macbook? If I can, how should I go about reformatting the hard drive?

FORMAT TYPES
FAT32 (File Allocation Table)
Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
Maximum file size: 4GB.
Maximum volume size: 2TB
You can use this format if you share the drive between Mac OS X and Windows computers and have no files larger than 4GB.
NTFS (Windows NT File System)
Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X, here are some alternatives:
For Mac OS X 10.4 or later (32 or 64-bit), install Paragon (approx $20) (Best Choice for Lion)
Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard and Lion, but is not advisable, due to instability.
AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support NTFS
Maximum file size: 16 TB
Maximum volume size: 256TB
You can use this format if you routinely share a drive with multiple Windows systems.
HFS+ ((((MAC FORMAT)))) (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Don't use case-sensitive)
Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! backups of Mac internal hard drive.
To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer
Maximum file size: 8EiB
Maximum volume size: 8EiB
You can use this format if you only use the drive with Mac OS X, or use it for backups of your Mac OS X internal drive, or if you only share it with one Windows PC (with MacDrive installed on the PC)
EXFAT (FAT64)
Supported in Mac OS X only in 10.6.5 or later.
Not all Windows versions support exFAT.
exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support exFAT
Maximum file size: 16 EiB
Maximum volume size: 64 ZiB
You can use this format if it is supported by all computers with which you intend to share the drive. See "disadvantages" for details.

Reformatting my External Hard Drive from Time Machine Backups

I used an existing external hard drive as my Time Machine Backup, but it only has 80 GB capability while my hard drive is 30 GB. I will buy a new one external hard drive and I want to revert the existing one back to a shared external hard drive. How do I reformat my existing external hard drive? Do I open it through iMac and delete the folders and rename the drive?

How do I reformat my existing external hard drive? Do I open it through iMac and delete the folders and rename the drive?
NO. There are some hidden files/folders TM uses, and which you won't be able to delete through Finder.
Open /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility, select the non-indented drive just above the external (make sure you have the right one, NOT your internal), select the "Erase" tab, and erase it, formatting it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). While you're there, make sure it's partitioned as GUID if you have an intel-based Mac, and APM if you have a PPC-based mac.
Both those operations will completely wipe the drive. You won't be able to recover any files from them after the wipe.
Good luck!
Message was edited by: joshz

Reformatting an external hard drive from mac to pc

i have a 320GB simple tech external hard drive that i used for my mac book pro. My mac book pro broke down completely so i bought an Asus laptop which runs Windows 7. I go to plug in the external hard drive, however i cant access it. It does show up under devices and printers but i cant open it in anyway. The only option i get is to eject it. is there any way that i can get it so that my new laptop can read it ?

i have the same issue, but when I right click on the partion, the option to assign a drive letter is grey'd out. i do not see a disk format either, it is blank in that section (FileSystem).
What can I do? i have Windows XP
Hey I had the exact same problem. I was using my external hard drive on a MacBook and wanted to format it so that it would work on XP but when I opened Disk Management all the options were greyed out. Here's how I solved the problem:
1. Connect your external hard drive to your mac
2. Open Disk Utility (command+F and type 'disk utility')
3. Click the drive you want to format in the left hand pannel
4. Click the 'partition' tab
5. Select under Volume Scheme '1 partition'
6. Under Volume Information, under format select 'MS- DOS (FAT)'
7. Click 'Apply'
The disk should now be formatted in FAT32 which is compatible with Windows XP. After completing those steps I connect the hard drive to my PC and I was able to read and write in the volume. Hope this helps!

How to restore a failed external hard drive from Time Machine?

My external hard drive has failed. It will no longer spin up and therefore is unmountable. Thankfully I had added it to my OSX Time Machine backups. So, since disks are cheap, I can just go buy a new, probably larger external drive and restore, right? But how do I tell Time Machine that this is a replacement and to restore to the new drive?
PS - Yes I did remove the external drive from TM's exclude list and have verified that the backup is there on TM's own external drive.

dacracot wrote:
My external hard drive has failed. It will no longer spin up and therefore is unmountable. Thankfully I had added it to my OSX Time Machine backups. So, since disks are cheap, I can just go buy a new, probably larger external drive and restore, right? But how do I tell Time Machine that this is a replacement and to restore to the new drive?
give the new drive the same name as the old one. then you can restore anything on its backups using regular TM interface. if you want to restore the whole drive , just select the whole drive in the sidebar, scroll back in time to when the odl time was backed up and hit 'restore".
PS - Yes I did remove the external drive from TM's exclude list and have verified that the backup is there on TM's own external drive.

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

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