Disk utility is within system preferences, or you can find it using spotlight. You can run it on your mac, and use it to format external hard drive or device on your mac. Open disk utility via your applications utilities folder. Right click the macintosh hd in disk utility and select mount button. The sidebar now shows your disks devices and any containers. You can use the erase function to format a hard drive or device. How to force a hard drive to unmount for formatting in mac. See troubleshooting for more information on which format to select. Erase and reformat a storage device in disk utility on mac apple. In the sidebar, select the disk you want to format to use with windows computers.
How to erase and install you can use os x recovery to erase your computer using disk utility. You can format a drive using the disk utility in mac. Step 2 on the left side of the utilities screen, find the name of the external hard drive you want to format and select it. Some people may want to format a storage because they want to clean hard drive mac and others might want to install fresh os x. Follow these easy steps to format a hard drive in windows 10, windows 8, windows 7, windows vista, or windows xp. Have you ever tried to format a disk in mac os x and disk utility wont unmount the hard drive for formatting. It doesnt be counted if it is an internal or external, or if its a difficult drive or an ssd. When formatting a hard drive with disk utility, make sure to select the correct drive. How to securely erase data from your mac and external drives. Most users use disk utility to erase a disk or hard drive. Copy your files over from the installed hard drive to the ssd.
Format external hard drive for mac with disk utility. This wikihow teaches you how to format a seagate hard drive on a mac computer. How to fix internal hard drive not showing up on mac. Use disk utility to erase format a hard disk, ssd, flash drive, or other storage device. Unfortunately, disk utility in macos high sierra doesnt make that option easy to find. Erasing a disk or volume permanently deletes all of its files. The status bar says unmounting disk it barber poles for a minute or so then give an. When prompted, select the mac os extended journaled format. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them.
For more security, consider turning on filevault encryption when you. This will work in all modern versions of apple mac osx including 10. Before formatting any hard drive, its a good idea to backup any data or files you want to save before formatting. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide. How do i use disk utility to reformat my hard drive. Using my other mac, i connected the thumb drive and opened disk utility. Make your mac feel like new again with a fresh install of os x. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. If you desire encryption, then select mac os extended journaled, encrypted format instead. Click on disk utility then continue first of all to get your macs hard drive wiped. Check apples disk utility to see if an external drive is showing up.
Formatting would erase data completely, make sure that you have a data backup. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. If it is visible, then click the option to mount, which should make it visible on the desktop and in the external drives option in the finder menu. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. Erase and reformat a storage device in disk utility on mac. The reasons for wanting to format your mac storage drive may vary depending on immediate need.
How to format a mac hard drive with disk utility lifewire. If you are having a hard time using the command line, try the disk utility app, which is simpler and uses the gui. Open disk management, the hard drive manager included with all versions of windows. And while the various cloning apps have a lot more features, if you dont have access to thirdparty apps, using disk utility will create a perfectly usable clone, although it may require a few more steps and lacks some nice features, such as automation and scheduling. This could be a external hard drive if its your own mac hard drive. Select your startup drive on the left typically macintosh hd, switch to the erase tab and choose mac os. The good news is the disk utility built into the os x comes in handy, like a visual assistant making the process easier. Formatting a drive will erase all data and partitions on the disk. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac.
A step by step guide to how to wipe a mac clean backblaze. Click on the erase tab in disk utilitys main window. Click the erase button at the top of the disk utility window. How to work with external drives on a chromebook recoverit. Connect the hard drive or usb key to the mac launch disk utility, located in applications utilities locate the drive name from the left hand side of disk utility and click on it click on the erase tab across the top. How to erase usb flash drive, disk volumes, external hard drives on mac os. Step 1 connect the external hard drive you want to format to your mac, then start the disk utility app that you can find under applications utilities. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Do you take out the hard drive or ssd and smash it. Click on disk utility and select quit disk utility. Open the disk utility app on your mac using one of the following methods, depending on the type of disk or volume you want to erase. For pc and mac compatibility, select exfat format and master boot record. Heres how to format a drive using a mac including how to format a drive for.
How to erase disk on mac in disk utility reformat storage device for. Then select disk utility from the utilities window and click continue. How to create a partition on your mac to install macos. How to format a drive with the apfs file system on macos. In this case, you can try mounting the drive manually. When you open this app, it will show all the hard drives and devices on your mac.
Refer to detailed steps of using both tools for fat32 format. Sometimes, the macintosh hd greyed out in disk utility just because it cant be mounted. Heres a tutorial on how to format a drive on a windows computer. If your mac comes equipped with an ssd, apples disk utility software. Erase everything on macbook pro with data wiper recommend. Download disk formatting software for mac doyourdata. Here ill show you how you can erase and format a disk using the command line. Click on reinstall mac os x and choose the ssd as the destination.
It is quite simple, one of the reason i love apple. Mac os x installation basics sata drive seagate support us. How to format a startup drive for a mac if you want to format a drive that will be used as your macs startup disk, the procedure is a little different from formatting it for use as a secondary. How to use macos sierra disk utility to partition external. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Use the disk utility application to erase the drive. Select disk utility and click on the continue button. In the disk utility app on your mac, choose view show all devices. What disk utility looks like in lion through yosemite. Once you open the disk utility app, you can see all the drives on your mac are listed on the lefthand sidebar. However, when the hard drive has been erased by disk utility, most of the formatted data can be recovered by data recovery software. For apple mac users, there are two ways to format usb flash drive to fat32, including disk utility and terminal command line. Formatting a drive so you can install and boot macos requires the guid partition map.
Remember that this method can only be used to erase the hard disk drive which does not have the mac os installed on it. You can, however, format a windows hard drive from a mac if you connect the windows hard drive to the mac and format it through disk utility, or the command line as described above. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 on mac os xmacos. You can reformat a macbooks hard drive with disk utility.
It is the fastest way to format an external hard drivedevice under mac os. Formatting the drive will permanently erase all the data and files stored on the hard drive forever. We also have a tutorial on using disk utility on a mac here. How to format a usb external disk for mac osx using disk. Now in this interface, you will see a format option. Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. Whether its a hard drive in an older mac or an external hard drive, if it is accessible, you can use disk utility to securely erase it. Heres how to format a drive if you are planning to use it with a mac. If you have any files you want to save, copy them to another storage device.
This method uses the utilities which can be run only on the mac os. All external usb disks can be formatted to work on mac osx, but not always straight out of the box. It could be ssd, yet the internal hard drive may not show up on the mac, finder or disk utility, stoping you from accessing your data or booting your mac up. After booting into recovery mode, select disk utility from macos utilities and click continue. All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your mac. Disk utility will require some time to create the backup of your mac depending on the amount of data you have on your startup disk. How to erase disk on mac in disk utility reformat storage device. How to format external hard drives on a mac sweetwater. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. If you need to remove the hard drive with os files, you can use method 2. Using disk utility to backup your mac switching to mac. When asked to restore files from another disk, choose the currently installed hard drive. If your mac is using apfs, select apfs from the format list. Everything you need to know about your macs hard drive.
How to erase everything on macbook pro hard drive befre. Select your drives as the destination and install installing a sata drive as a storage unit 10. With a solidstate drive ssd, secure erase options are not available in disk utility. Then youll have a complete copy of your hard drive which you can use to restore your data later on.
File system formats available in disk utility on mac. Change the size of the partition you wish to use by dragging the resize controls. How to format external hard drive mac 2 simple methods. This will completely wipe the drive, deleting all the files on it and converting it to whatever file system you choose. There is an eject button next to the device in files.
You will be prompted to either add an apfs volume or a partition. Just launch the disk utility, rightclick or controlclick the drive containing your apfs partition, and select erase. Then proceed to highlight your computers hard drive. Macclean360 is one of the best disk cleaning and management software for mac os. To do that, the only thing you need is a bit of precise syntax to make sure that you are erasing the proper disk.
The internal hard drive of your mac, also known as macintosh hd or startup disk, is used to store operating system directory and other data, supporting computer to work in a normal manner. Otherwise, you can only use data recovery software to recover data from a. How to replace and upgrade a macbook pro hard disk. It can happen for external usb and firewire as well as internal disks. Before continuing, make sure that you have a backup of any files that you want to keep. Opening disk management can be done a number of ways depending on your version of windows, but the easiest method is to type diskmgmt. In this tutorial we look at formatting disks via the gui app called disk utility and its equivalent command line tool diskutil. The hard drive will operate just like a hard drive on any other computer with folders that can be broken into subfolders and even more subfolders within that. How to install macos or os x on a new hard drive for your mac. Click the scheme popup menu, then choose master boot record. Minitool partition wizard free edition is a reputable allinone disk partition manager, which can help you not only format hard drive windows 10 but also enable users to resize partition, check file system, convert fat to ntfs without data loss, convert mbr to gpt, copy disk, or migrate windows os to an ssd etc. To run a 7pass erase of your ssd drive in johnbmacbook, you would enter the following. How to fix macintosh hd greyed out in disk utility. Choose another file system from the format box and click erase.
Select the mounted drive on the left hard side bar. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another. Just bought a 4tb segate drive for my mac to use with time machine. Just select the one you want to format and click on the erase tab. Select the hard drive you want to securely erase from the list of available drives in the left column. Disk utility is free and included with every copy of the mac os.
Disk utility lets you format your drive using many filesystems like the three listed above. For example, if you need to reinstall mac os x on a macbook in your office and want to clear all the. Were going to use disk utility to format a drive, no matter the type. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility.