Will an external hard drive formatted for Mac work on PC?

A hard drive formatted for use in a Mac has either an HFS or HFS+ file system. For this reason, a Mac-formatted hard drive is not directly compatible, nor readable by a Windows computer.

How do I format a USB drive for Mac and PC?

How to format a flash drive for Mac and PC compatibility in macOS High Sierra

1. Insert the flash drive or hard drive you want to format for Windows compatibility.
2. Select the drive you want to format.
3. Click the Erase button.
4. Click the Format menu, then choose either MS-DOS (FAT) or ExFAT.

How do I format a Mac external hard drive for Windows?

Format a disk for Windows computers in Disk Utility on Mac

1. In the Disk Utility app on your Mac, choose View > Show All Devices.
2. In the sidebar, select the disk you want to format to use with Windows computers.
3. Click the Erase button in the toolbar.

How do I make my external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC without formatting?

How to make external hard drive compatible with mac and pc without formatting:

1. Fortunately there’s a viable neutral ground that is exFat file system.
2. By changing the disk consents and permission to read only option.
3. By splitting a portion of your external drive for windows and mac.

What is the best format for USB drive on Mac?

If you absolutely, positively will only be working with Macs and no other system, ever: Use Mac OS Extended (Journaled). If you need to transfer files larger than 4 GB between Macs and PCs: Use exFAT. In all other cases: Use MS-DOS (FAT), aka FAT32.

Can I use the same USB on Mac and PC?

You can format a hard drive or USB flash disk specifically so that it will be compatible with both Mac OS X and Windows PC computers.

What is the best format for a Mac external hard drive?

exFAT
The Best Format for External Hard Drives If you want to format your external hard drive to work with Mac and Windows computers, you should use exFAT. With exFAT, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years.

Why can’t I write to USB drive on Mac?

If the issue still persists please change device file system: Make sure the device is on the Mac side. Insert the USB flash drive into your Mac’s USB port. Click “Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.” Alternatively, enter “Disk Utility” in the search bar and click “Disk Utility” to launch the application.

Can a flash drive be used on Mac and PC?

How to format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows?

AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is a great free partition format tool that allows you to format external hard drive to Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT, etc. It supports Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP, both 32 and 64 bit. It is very easy to use that every one can use it to format partition alone.

What to do when external hard drive won’t format?

Therefore, when external hard drive won’t format to FAT32 or NTFS, you can free download the AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard,and force format the external hard drive within 3 steps. Step 1. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant on your Windows 10/8/7 PC. You will see all disks on your computer in the main interface.

How can I read Mac formatted files from Windows 10?

Connect the Mac-formatted drive to Windows 10 PC. Run HFSExplorer as administrator. Select File from the menu bar. Click Autodetect to load the connected hard drive. Choose the files & folders you want to view in the HFS+ drive. Click Extract in the graphical window.

How do I format an external hard drive to exFAT?

Here we take an example of formatting external hard drive to exFAT in a Windows 10 PC. Step 1. Connect your external hard drive to your Windows 10 PC. Step 2. Open the Disk Management tool by right-clicking This PC -> Manage -> Disk Management. Step 3. In Disk Management, you’ll see your external hard drive as partition or unallocated space.