Aug 30, 2016 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. If you are having a hard time using the command line, try the Disk Utility app, which is simpler and uses the GUI. Jul 05, 2017 To format a drive on a Mac, you’ll need the built-in Disk Utility application. Press Command+Space to open the Spotlight search dialog, type “Disk Utility”, and press “Enter” to launch the app. You can also open a Finder window, select “Applications” in the sidebar, and head to Utilities Disk Utility.
A hard drive file system means ‘how the operating system stores data on the drive’. There are different hard drives formatting used by Mac, Linux, Windows operating systems. In general, there are three common filesystems, which are used i.e: HFS+, NTFS, and FAT32. However, these file systems are not compatible with every operating system. HFS+ is used by Mac OS X, Windows uses NTFS and FAT 32 etc.
Here are some more information about file systems:-
OS Type | NTFS | HFS+ | FAT32 |
Microsoft Windows | Read and Write | Read Only | Read and Write |
Mac OS X | Read Only | Read and Write | Read and Write |
Here, one question is very important “If FAT32 works on both OS, why don’t we use it as default?”
Answer is FAT32has somelimitations on file size however, it can work with 4GB larger file size but, this filesystem is outdated as compare to growth of computers technology. Since, it is cross operating system compatible so, still widly used by people. Users do format their disk and assigned different filesystem as per work requirements.
How to format Mac disk with Disk Utility?
Step 1: Open Disk Utility from application folder. Western digital for mac review.
Mac Disk Utility Startup
Step 2: Choose the mounted drive on the left hand side bar
Step 3: Go to the Erase tab
Step 4: Choose a hard drive format. (Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is HFS+)
Step 5: Click format and your format process starts and it will permanently erase all of the data
Steps to format Mac drive with Recovery HD:-
Office 2019 mac upgrade. Step 1:Power off your Mac system What is mac os intel.
Step 2: If you have FileVault enabled, just press and hold the Command and R keys and power on
![Disk Disk](https://images.idgesg.net/images/article/2017/08/paragon-ntfs-for-mac-15-user-interface-100730887-large.jpg)
Step 3: If you don’t have FileVault enabled, just press and hold the Option key and power on and Use the arrow keys to select Recovery HD.
Step 4: Open Disk Utility from the welcome screen
Step 5: Select the Erase tab
Step 6: Select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for the file system format and name the drive Macintosh HD
Step 7: Click Erase
Ntfs Disk Format Utility
Step 8: When the process completed, go back to the home screen of recovery tools and select Install OS X and complete the installation.
Bootable Ntfs Format Utility
These are the different ways to format your Mac drive. Formatting task can also be done by one of the well known third party tool i.e Drive ToolBox. Drive initilizer utility of this tool helps to Format Mac Drive. It is a complete pack of 12 utilities which can perform all Mac maintenance related task very quickly.