Ive only had my macbook for a short time so im a little unfamilar with the system. I have late 2011 13' macbook pro 2.4, recently purchased a WD my passport essential se 1TB for extra storage. The external HD will be used for storing photos, movies and music. But im a little unsure how to format it. I no longer have access to a mac and I am wondering if there is there a way to use the drive on a PC. As of now my PC recognizes… I have a My Passport for MAC, model wdbaab5000ach-02, which was initialized on a macbook.
Why Do You Format External Hard to FAT32 It is no doubt that you want to make full use of your external hard drive. Why do I say it like this? Because each operating system reads a specific file system.
If you got an NTFS hard drive, then you can only apply it in a Windows computer other than in a Mac. However, the thing turns entirely different if you got a FAT32 external storage drive, either Windows OS or Mac OS X would recognize it very happily. Don't waste your money to invest in another new drive if you sadly found that your NTFS hard drive is not usable on some devices that require a FAT32 file format drive.
Other than the file system difference between Windows and Mac operating system, PlayStation console players should know that the format of an external USB drive has to be FAT32, too. To add an external USB drive to the console, they have to format PS USB to FAT32. So in any case where the FAT32 file system is required, you can apply the following two methods to format the external hard drive to FAT32 at once.
How to Format External Hard Drive to FAT32 in Windows Computer The coming two methods are tested as the most effective in formatting an external drive to FAT32. I've given an example of each method in Windows 10 computer respectively, which I'm running so far. Format External Hard Drive in FAT32 Using DOS Step 1: Open a command window by directly enter CDM in Windows 10 'Search the web and Windows' box. Step 2: Type the command format /FS: FAT32 H: at the prompt.
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(H is the drive letter of your external hard drive in Windows 10. Replace 'H' with the drive letter on your device.) Step 3: Hit 'Enter'. Windows 10 will go ahead and begin formatting the drive in FAT32. Format External Hard Drive in FAT32 Using Professional Format Tool If you're afraid of making a mess by using command prompt, try this more straightforward method.
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EaseUS is a third-party format utility that can help format an external hard drive, USB drive, SD card, and any other removable storage device to FAT32 easily and quickly, which should be the primary choice for computer novices. Connect your storage device to your computer correctly and learn how to format the external hard drive to FAT32 in Windows 10 with EaseUS Partition Master from the steps below.
Im not saying your wrong but im in the process of formatting a 1 TB external drive to NTFS on XP Pro without any troubles as im writting this. Im unaware of this XP problem as I have never seen it before, however if you are able to format your drive you can find out by, 1 - Connect your external drive so that it can be seen in My Computer, 2 - Right Click on it, and from the drop down menu select Format 3 - Follow the steps, Select NTFS from the drop down menu, Rename yor hard drive if you want to and leave everything else as it is, then click Start. 4 - Profit If you want you can also Right click on My Computer, and from the drop down menu select Manage, then select Disk Management from your options on the left side when the window opens up.
You can format your drive from here simply by right clicking on it again and selecting Format. Plug in the 1TB Western Digital drive to power outlet and USB port. Ignore the drive and CD icon on the desktop.
Now, go to your Applications folder on your Mac hard disk. Open Time Machine and choose the new My Essentials Book as the drive to backup as a Time Machine drive. Click yes to erase the drive and use it for Time Machine. The My Essentials Book is now Mac formatted and ready to use. It will say Time Machine backup in the icon on your desktop. You can rename this and then reopen Time Machine from your Applications folder, and turn off the Time Machine option, if you choose to. The OS handles formatting a new drive recieving a full reformat is rather quick as all it has to do is update teh Allocation table and drive labels.
XP had a thig on it as part of SP2 I believe that updated an existing drive from FAT 16 / 32 to NTFS securely without loosing data. This takes a very long time. So long infact it might be beneficial to back up files on that drive wipe it and reformat at same time and reload. I run linux and reformatting my file servers Drives WD 1000g Green powers only takes 2 minutes to format to my format of EXT3 or one drive runs NTFS incase I ever go back to windows.