Learn a few ways to make your drive Mac and PC friendly.Need to format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows. With the release of Microsoft Word 2007, Microsoft introduced the new DOCX file.If you have an external hard drive or USB flash drive that you’d like to use on both Macs and Windows PCs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing. The Mac drive may have an EFI System Partition on it.The DOC file format is an older format used by Microsoft Word 2003 and earlier. 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. If you’re lucky, you can just right-click each partition on the Mac drive and select Delete Volume to remove the partitions.So, if you want to use an external hard drive on both Windows and Mac, you need to format it to a filesystem that is compatible with Windows PC and Mac.How to Format a USB Drive as exFAT for Mac and Windows Compatibility. They are incompatible with each other. Windows uses NTFS and Mac uses HFS.Launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities). Let’s take a look at them: HFS+Format a drive using Disk Utility on a Mac. In fact, there are four ways you can format an external or USB flash drive to achieve varying degrees of compatibility between Macs and PCs. Since Mac OS X and Windows use totally different file systems, the way a drive is formatted can determine what type of computer it will work with.
File Format And Windows Install MacDrive OnThis isn’t a good solution if you need your drive to work on any PC without installing software, though. When you install MacDrive on a Windows PC, it will be able to seamlessly read & write to HFS+ drives. If you’re only going to be using your external or USB flash drive with certain PCs – such as at home or the office – you might be interested in a program called MacDrive. But while HFS+ is the best way to format drives for use on Macs, Windows does not support it. Click the Erase button and the drive will start formatting.Mac OS X’s native file system is HFS+ (also known as Mac OS Extended), and it’s the only one that works with Time Machine. Select the format Mac OS Extended (HFS+), MS-DOS (FAT32), or exFAT then name the drive. So if you need to get files from a PC to your Mac, NTFS is a decent option. Macs can read files on NTFS drives, but it cannot write to them. Audacity is an easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and.The native Windows file system is NTFS, which is only partially compatible with Mac OS X. ![]() The other limitation is the total size of the partition. This is a deal-breaker if you work with huge files. For example, you cannot save files that are larger than 4GB on a FAT32-formatted drive. What is the best video recorder for macExFATThe exFAT file system eliminates the two major deficiencies of FAT32: the largest partition and file sizes it supports are virtually unlimited by today’s standards. Much better, except for that pesky 4GB limit. If you format it from a Mac running 10.7 Lion, the drive partition can be up to 2TB. Select your external hard drive or USB flash drive from the list on the left. Launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities). Format a drive using Disk Utility on a Mac If you know you’ll be using computers running updated versions of these operating systems, exFAT is the clear best choice. Any Mac running 10.6.5 (Snow Leopard) or 10.7 (Lion) supports exFAT, while PCs running Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP1, and Windows 7 are compatible. Make the NTSF drive both readable and writable in Mac OS X. You’ll end up with a drive that is:– Stable, so your data is relatively safe (priority #1)2. Format your hard drive, or every partition on it, using NTSF. Maybe one day, but for now, “not ready for prime time!”.1. Type (copy/paste): sudo nano /etc/fstabType: LABEL=TEST none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse3. (enter your password if prompted)2. Go to “utilities” and start the “terminal” app. So you need to activate it:1. They’re not free, but they won’t break the bank. Make sure to download the “free for home user” version.The other methods involve using 3rd party drivers such as: Paragon NTFS or Tuxera NTFS. Back in the terminal, type: open /VolumesThere’s your NTSF drive! Now you can do whatever you want with it in Mac OS X.(tip: create an alias of the volumes so you don’t have to go back to the terminal every time…)Another free method: “EaseUS ALL-IN-ONE Partition Manager” softwareI’ve not tried it myself, but I’ve only heard good things about it.
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