passport external harddrive format for mac and pc

Passport External Harddrive Format And Pc Update The Data

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Macs may also create a protected EFI partition on these drives that you cant delete with the usual disk-partitioning tools.

Macs can read NTFS drives, and can read and write to FAT32 drives.

Instead, well just be wiping the drive and starting over from scratch.

If you only have Windows systems available, you can use HFSExplorer to copy files from the drive onto your Windows system drive or another drive.

HFSExplorer unfortunately requires you install Java to use it, but its the only free option here.

Press Windows Key R to open the Run dialog, type diskmgmt.msc into the box, and press Enter to open it.

This tool allows you to manage the partitions on drives connected to your computer internal ones or external ones connected via USB.

Be sure youve identified the Mac drive if you accidentally delete partitions from another drive, you could damage your Windows installation or lose your files.

You can then right-click in the empty space and select New Simple Volume to create a partition and format it with the Windows NTFS or FAT32 file systems.

This partition is marked as protected, so you cant just right-click and delete it the delete option will be disabled.

This process erases everything on the disk, including its files and all its partitions.

First, note the number of the disk in the disk management window.

For example, in the screenshot below, the Mac-formatted drive is Disk 2.

To do this on Windows 8 or Windows 7, press the Windows key once, type cmd, and press CtrlShiftEnter.

It should be the same as the number of the disk in the Disk Management window.

This command erases the entire selected disk, including all its files and partitions whether theyre protected or not.

Passport External Harddrive Format And Pc Update The Data

If youve left it open, you may have to click Action Rescan Disks to update the data.

It will be completely empty and display a message saying Not Initialized.

Use the wizard to create a partition with the NTFS or FAT32 file system.

The drive will now be formatted for use by Windows systems.

For example, Time Machine can only back up to HFS formatted drives.

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Passport External Harddrive Format For Mac And Pc