WARNING: Formatting will erase all data on the device. Back up all your data before proceeding.
Instructions below are for 10.11.x (El Capitan) and 10.12.x (Sierra)
1. Double-click on Macintosh HD - or in the Finder menu clickFile > New Finder Window
2. Click the Applications folder - if using a Finder Window Applicationswill be in the left side menu.
3. Click the Utilities folder.
4. Double-click Disk Utility.
5. On the left side of the window are the drives connected to the computer. Select the capacity of the drive respective to the one containing the device you wish to format then click the Erase tab.
Example: If the drive is called 'NO NAME', directly above that, you should see the drive capacity of 'XXXX'. Select this capacity.
6. Verify Volume Format is set to MS-DOS file system or exFAT, Scheme is set to 'Master Boot Record' (Do NOT select GUID Partition Map) then click Erase.
Instructions below are for 10.13.x (High Sierra)
1. Open Disk Utility. Please See Answer 20985: How to access Disk Utility macOS
2. In the top menu bar, go to View, and choose Show All Devices
Attach the drive to your Mac. Launch Disk Utility (from Applications Utilities Disk Utility). Select the drive in the left-hand sidebar. From the Format menu, select ExFAT. Attach the hard drive to the system that you wish to format using Mac HFS+ file system. Download Paragon Partition Manager Free if you have not already, then install the software. While the program loads, it will scan the disks attached to the system and present a list. Now you will need to select the disk you wish to format.
3. Select the upper level of the drive you would like to format and click the Erase button
4. Choose how you would like to format the drive
- Enter a Name for your drive
- Choose exFAT or MS-DOS (FAT) for the format
- Choose Master Boot Record for the Scheme
- Click Erase
5. When finished, the drive will be formatted and repartitioned successfully. Click the Done button
NOTE: exFAT is used on SDXC card (64GB and higher).
NOTE: exFAT can be used on flash drives or memory cards to transfer files larger than 4GB.
NOTE: MacOS 10.6.2 or higher is required for exFAT file system. Some older operating systems must have a patch installed before they can use the exFAT file system.
NOTE: If the above steps do NOT resolve the problem or if the lock switch is missing or broken, please back up your data and request a replacement using our online web form.
Related Articles:
Operating systems that support exFAT
Deleting files on a memory card using a Mac
Deleting files on a Cruzer USB flash drive using a Mac
Dec 21, 2020 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions
Instructions below are for 10.13.x (High Sierra)
1. Open Disk Utility. Please See Answer 20985: How to access Disk Utility macOS
2. In the top menu bar, go to View, and choose Show All Devices
Attach the drive to your Mac. Launch Disk Utility (from Applications Utilities Disk Utility). Select the drive in the left-hand sidebar. From the Format menu, select ExFAT. Attach the hard drive to the system that you wish to format using Mac HFS+ file system. Download Paragon Partition Manager Free if you have not already, then install the software. While the program loads, it will scan the disks attached to the system and present a list. Now you will need to select the disk you wish to format.
3. Select the upper level of the drive you would like to format and click the Erase button
4. Choose how you would like to format the drive
- Enter a Name for your drive
- Choose exFAT or MS-DOS (FAT) for the format
- Choose Master Boot Record for the Scheme
- Click Erase
5. When finished, the drive will be formatted and repartitioned successfully. Click the Done button
NOTE: exFAT is used on SDXC card (64GB and higher).
NOTE: exFAT can be used on flash drives or memory cards to transfer files larger than 4GB.
NOTE: MacOS 10.6.2 or higher is required for exFAT file system. Some older operating systems must have a patch installed before they can use the exFAT file system.
NOTE: If the above steps do NOT resolve the problem or if the lock switch is missing or broken, please back up your data and request a replacement using our online web form.
Related Articles:
Operating systems that support exFAT
Deleting files on a memory card using a Mac
Deleting files on a Cruzer USB flash drive using a Mac
Dec 21, 2020 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions
It is not rare to see people coming and asking how to format their new or second hard drive on Mac or Windows either for freeing up space or for making hard drives to be compatible with a new operating system. As speaking of this, it is essential to grasp the key steps to format your new or second hard drive. Before that, we will walk you through the reasons why or when you need to format new or second hard drives. Read on to discover more!
Part 1. Do You Need to Format a New or Second Hard Drive
To begin with, do you need to format a new hard drive? The answer is positive as formatting a new hard drive is the very first step before you start to use the new hard drive, isn't it? The gesture to format a new drive means so much to users because it signifies the note that this new drive is working correctly, completely clean, and free of malware or malicious code that may potentially harm your installation and personal files. Now you see when you buy a new hard drive, you need to make sure the drive is functioning well and it is clean.
What about second or used hard drives? Honestly, formatting second or used hard drives will help avoid a lot of issues or compatibility problems, especially when they were previously connected to a different operating system.
In short, formatting a new or second hard drive brings evident benefits to users as listed below.
- Tidy up your drive and free up space.
- Eliminate viruses, conflicts, or else from the existing drive.
- Remove any potential malware or malicious code.
- Erase any information on the used drive so that your operating system can read data from, and write data to, the drive.
- Improve system performance.
- Save money.
If you are going to format a new or second hard drive, keep in mind the following tips.
- Be 100% sure to back up your data before taking any action. This is especially vital to used hard drives. Otherwise, you may need to turn to professional software to recover the data lost during formatting.
- Makes sure your PC is fully charged as formatting or partitioning will take some time to finish.
Part 2. How to Format a New or Second Hard Drive in Windows 10
Formatting a drive may vary in terms of different operating systems, like Windows and Mac. Although in principle, formatting means to erase existing data and free up space for utilization, the procedures are not the same for Mac and Windows.
In specific, if you want to know how to format a new or second hard drive in Windows 10, don't miss the step-by-step instruction here.
Check your hard drive and categorize it as partitioned or non-partitioned beforehand. For a drive that has been configured with a partition, simply go through the formatting steps here to make a fresh drive.
Step 1: Open Disk Management
Type in disk management from the quick search box or directly move to the administrative tools to locate the disk management. Launch Disk Management.
Step 2: Right-click to format the drive
Now that you've found the drive you want to format, right-click it and choose Format to open the disk-formatting wizard.
Tips: Before you format the hard drive, you may click and open the drive to make sure this is exactly the drive you want to erase data and make a fresh drive.
Heads-up here! When you fail to locate the drive to format, or you see that an Initialize Disk window appears, it probably means that the hard drive is new and it's never been partitioned yet. In this case, you have to partition the drive beforehand as partitioning is something that must be done before a hard drive is formatted. Let me walk you through a brief procedure to partition your hard drive.
Step 1: Open Disk Management
Use the command line to enter the disk management interface, where you will see a pop-up window indicating 'You must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it.'
Step 2: Choose a style
Besides, choose a partition style based on the hard drive size. If it is larger than 2TB, choose GPT, otherwise choose MBR. Click OK to proceed.
Format Disk Drive Mac
Step 3: Locate the drive to partition and select a space for the partitioning
From the Disk Management window, tap the hard drive to partition and right-click to choose New Simple Volume.
Step 4: Proceed to the partitioning wizard
On the pop-up windows, click Next to proceed according to the partitioning wizard. You will see a window asking you to verify the partition choices from Completing the New Simple Volume Wizard screen. Once you have verified all the choices, click Finish to complete the partitioning.
This is the end of your partitioning a hard drive before you take steps to format the hard drive. Note that in Windows 10, these procedures are easy to follow just like the other Windows systems with only minor differences in terms of the user interface.
Part 3. How to Format a New or Second Hard Drive on Mac
Mac is a very much different operating system from Windows, let alone their features and steps to format a hard drive. Therefore, it is necessary to present a tutorial guide here to format or partition a hard drive within Mac OS.
Step 1: Launch Disk Utility from the launch pad on Mac or find disk utility from Finder
Open your Finder and enter 'disk utility' on the quick-search bar to locate the Disk Utility icon. Or start launchpad and find the disk utility from the launchpad.
Step 2: Locate the drive from the Disk Utility window
Click on the target hard drive from the sidebar on the left and you will see the details of this drive on the right pane, such as disk image volume, and a few buttons on top of the window.
Step 3: Erase the data on the drive
Tap on the Erase button from the function tab on the top of the window.
Step 4: Choose Mac OS extended for the volume format menu
On the displayed window, choose Mac OS extended for the volume format menu and you may name the hard drive on the Name box. Then, click the Erase button below to kick off the process, which will take a few minutes only.
Similar to formatting a hard drive, if you want to partition your hard drive due to various reasons, such as creating two OS within one box or saving space for data backup, you may follow steps here to partition the hard drive. The steps to partition a hard drive resemble those of formatting a hard drive except the part of erasing data. In terms of partitioning a hard drive, when you navigate to the drive window, check for the volume information of the hard drive in advance.
Next, tap on the Partition button on the top of the window, where a window will pop up to let you specify the number of partitions, the volume of each partition, and the name of these partitions. When all these settings are done, click Apply to move on to partition the hard drive eventually.
Tips: It is never too late to emphasize the importance of backing up your data before you format or partition your hard drive. You cannot be too cautious during data backup. We all don't want to see or hear any data loss. That is sad, isn't it? What if that happens? Can we have a remedy solution to get the data back? Absolutely yes.
Recoverit Mac Data Recovery is the very tool to help you get back your data that has been lost accidentally or the data you forget to backup beforehand. With it, you may relax a little bit because it will help you recover your data completely, no matter for a crashed drive or accidental deletion of data.
To do so, you may follow the tutorial guide here.
Step 1: Locate the target drive
Launch Recoverit on your PC and locate the drive to scan. Note that once you open Recoverit, it will automatically display all available drives and you just need to select the target drive to recover data. Click the Start button at the bottom to proceed.
Step 2: Scan the file location
On the left pane, there will be two categories, namely file type, and file path, both of which are created to help users with tracking down to specific files to recover. As soon as the scan ends, there will be a preview of your lost files on the right pane.
Step 3: Preview and recover formatted data
Select the target files by ticking the checkboxes in front of the file name on the left pane and click Recover at the bottom to kick off the process. It is recommended that you save the recovered data files to a new drive once the whole process completes.
Closing Words
Format Disk Drive For Mac
Formatting a new or second hard drive as usual. The routine procedure may differ a little bit for different operating systems, such as Windows and Mac OS. However, it is essential to follow two major steps for any systems, data backup, format/partition, respectively. That being said, you need to bear in mind that no matter for formatting or partitioning a hard drive, data backup is a must.
The last but certainly not the least, if you lose the data by accident, you may turn to free data recovery software - Recoverit for help. It will surely do the best to recover your deleted or lost files from your PC, hard drive, USB drive, SD card, mobile phone, as well as other removable devices on Windows and Mac.
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