how to partition external hard drive for mac and windows

You’ll have to be running OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) or higher or Windows XP or higher. It’s newer and supports much larger files, but only works with newer versions of OS X and Windows. If you need support for bigger files, then you should use the exFAT format. You can read my previous post on how to format an external hard drive using FAT32. So what’s the best format to use so that you can see your hard drive on multiple operating systems? The legacy format that is most compatible is FAT32, but it limits you to only 4 GB for max file size. Make sure you connect the drive to the appropriate operating system and backup any data that you might need before performing a format. If you see this message, it just means that Windows does not recognize the file system on the drive. When you connect a HFS+ formatted drive to Windows, you’ll get a message stating that the drive needs to be formatted in order to be used.

The only other option is to format the hard drive and use the FAT32 format for the best compatibility. You can get Windows to do it, but you have to purchase third-party software. Windows is worse in the sense that it cannot even read or write to HFS+ formatted volumes by default. Now OS X can read and write to FAT32 formatted drives, but can only read NTFS volumes. When it comes to file formats, there are a couple of major formats that are used about 99% of the time: FAT32 and NTFS for Windows and HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) for Macs. Scroll down to the Not Showing Up section below.

If the drive is not showing up in Disk Management or Disk Utility at all, you have some other type of problem. If the drive has a file system not recognized by OS X, you’ll need to erase it and the format it using FAT or HFS+. If the drive is showing here, but not on the OS X desktop, then click First Aid to try and repair the drive. If not, go to Disk Utility and check to see if it appears under the heading External. On Macs, the drive should automatically appear on the desktop. If the drive is showing, but you’re getting messages about the drive needing to be formatted, etc., then read the next section below. Pick a letter for your drive and you should be good to go. In Disk Management, just right-click on the disk and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths. Normally, Windows does this automatically, but sometimes because of other connected devices, your external hard drive will be recognized, but not have any drive letter assigned to it. If the drive shows up here, but not in Windows Explorer, you might have to assign a drive letter to the disk. In order to figure out whether your problem is related to formatting or to not being recognized, go to Disk Management in Windows or Disk Utility on OS X and see if the drive shows up there. This is usually a problem with drivers or hardware. The other main reason is that the drive simply is not being recognized by Windows or Mac and therefore won’t even show up on your system at all.

How to partition external hard drive for mac and windows