Hardware :: Format External Hard Drive To FAT32 / Formatting Without Erasing Data?
Jan 19, 2008
I have an external hard drive that I was previously using on PC, having attempted to use it on a Mac, it will not write to it. I've found that I have to format to FAT32, which I think i can just about manage (yes, im a girl) but my concern is, if i format through the MAC, will i then lose what's on the hard disk as the tab says 'erase'? I have a lot of images on the hard disk so am a little petrified! Any advice for this really basic question would be appreciated!
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Jan 24, 2010
I just bout this Western Digital External Hard drive, Passport SE. Anyways, I formatted it to MS-DOS (FAT) so I can use on mac and/or windows. One of the other main reasons I bought it was so I could use it to watch videos on my Xbox 360.
Now I've seen tutorials online with windows how to re-format it to FAT32 so it works properly on xbox 360 but cannot figure it out on mac? On some of the tutorials they use certain programs to do it, is there something like that for mac I can download? Is fat32 and fat the same? I know there has to be a way for me to be able to format it to FAT32 using mac.
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Nov 2, 2010
i'd like to format my lacie external hard drive with two partitions:
1. HFS+ partition as a bootable clone of my internal drive
2. FAT32 partition readable by any windows (and mac) machine
i'm creating my partitions with disk utility, but i hit a snag when choosing a partition scheme...apparently i cannot choose a different scheme for each partition.
so when i format the drive with GUID, the FAT32 partition is not even recognized by windows XP. but when i format the drive with master boot record (MBR), the HFS+ partition is not bootable...
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Dec 27, 2010
I bought a WD My Book Essential to do Time Machine backups. It is formatted for a PC but I was told I need to format for my IMac before I can use it. How do I do that? Is it a complicated process? I have only been using a Mac for about a year now and am still learning about them.
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Jun 9, 2012
How to convert NTFS external hard drive to FAT32 without loosing data?
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8), Seagate Agent GoFlex 1.5TB
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Apr 8, 2010
got a real basic question to ask and you're gonna think im an idiot for asking...I just bought a 320gb western digital elements hard drive and want to reformat it so that its compatible for both mac and pc's. i intend to format it as NTFS-3G as it would allow me to use it on the 2 platforms without having the 4GB file size restriction that fat32 has, anyway.....
when I go to reformat my external hard drive in disk utility, I see my external hard drive to the left, and there's a "sub" hard drive as a child of the external hd listed uppermost. just wandering which one of the two do i select before going to Erase>Windows NT filesystem (NTFS-3G)>erase? Do I select the uppermost drive and erase that or the lower one? or both
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Jul 27, 2010
I just got my new Seagate 640gb external hard drive and am in the process of formatting it on my MBP. However, I am not sure which format to do? My main use for the hard drive is for transferring media files back and forth between my MBP and PC using just one partition on the drive. I already know I'm not supposed to pick 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' because I believe that is to use it as a boot drive. So should I pick 'Mac OS Extended' or maybe 'Free Space'?
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Jun 26, 2009
Can I use time machine to back up my data without formatting the external hard drive .. If not please let me know if there is a way to back up to hard drive without using time machine.. Thank you
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Jun 5, 2012
what are the disadvantages of formatting an external drive as FAT32?
Info:
MacBook Pro
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Feb 15, 2011
I have an external multimedia disk currently formated in NTFS microsoft format. I'd like to be able to copy content to it from my Mac and a PC so I thought to format it in FAT 32. can anyone tell me if there is a size limit to FAT32. what are the major limitations of FAT 32 vs NTFS
Information:
MACBOOK
Mac OS X (10.5.4)
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Feb 27, 2009
I'm going to buy my first Macbook this weekend and I'm trying to get myself ready so that I don't have to waste precious playing time on stuff like this I have an external hard drive filled with music, videos and files. I would like to keep using my drive on my mac to access my files and save backups etc. The hard drive is in NTFS format and from what I understand the mac will be able to read but not write to it - which isn't what I want. Ideally I don't want to lose the content on the drive, but if I have to I could slowly copy it all onto dvds. If possible I also want the drive to be compatible with Windows so I can plug it into parents/friends/uni's computers and still be able to view/add content on rare occasions. What format should the drive be and how do I do that? (I think I can manage to do it once someone points me in the right direction)
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Sep 2, 2010
I just bought a new external hard drive and backed-up my computer onto it. Then today I realized that I didn't format the drive. All I did was follow instruction for hooking it up. Also, I'm a Mac user. Is it customary to do a full and proper format of newly purchased external hard drives? The most I did was verify the disk in disk utility when I first plugged in the HD to my computer. Is that enough?
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Jun 11, 2012
Since I activated FileVault 2 on my Mac boot drive without initializing it, I'd assume that the same thing could be done for any other drive. I've got some external drives with hundreds of GB of data which I'd like to encrypt. Disk Utility lets do it by erasing the drive and encrypting the data written afterwards.
Is there any hidden feature that allows one to convert the drive without erasing it first, like the FileVault utility did for the boot drive (even when working on it!)?
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)
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Dec 16, 2009
I am in need of a data recovery app that can recover data off a Fat32 drive and save the recovered data to a NTFS drive (I use NTFS-3G). I have PhotoRec but can't seem to navigate to my NTFS external to save the data (the only drive big enough to save the data too is my girlfriend's 500GB external and it is NTFS).
Any tips to getting photorec to navigate to the drive (I am pulling from one external to another). Photorec sees the one I want to save too I just can't get it to select it. Also if there are any other programs yall recommend, I will give them a shot.
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Jun 20, 2009
I was doing a 7-Pass Erase of a hard drive that I had switched out of my MBP. During the process, the USB cable connecting my hard drive to my MBP got disconnected. Now, whenever I connect this external drive to my MBP, it doesn't show up in the desktop or under disk utiltiy. How can I can continue the process of erasing and formatting the drive? What do I have to do in order for OS X to recognize it?
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Nov 5, 2009
I'm running Snow Leopard on my new Macbook Pro. I've got a 1.5TB External hard drive that I'm trying to figure out how to format in HFS+ with Apple Partition Map. I can figure out how to format in HFS using Disk Utility, however it still does it in GUID format and I do not know how to do it in Apple Partition Map.
Googleing this for hours has lead with all kinds of information on how to go to GUID FROM Apple Partition Map but not the other way around. I know GUID is the new hottness.. but this drive will be used exclusively to connect to my XBOX 360 and it supposedly only reads HFS+ when its formatted with Apple Partition Map. (I have tried it with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with GUID, and the XBOX does NOT recognize it) I do not want to use Fat 32, (I know that that is the other major option) beacuse it limits file size.
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Mar 31, 2009
I've been backing up my Powerbook G4 for a few months using Time Machine to an external firewire drive with two partitions; one for the backups, and a much larger one for all my music, video, pictures, etc. I got a new mac mini over the weekend and I want to format the Time Machine partition without erasing the one with all my other files so I can start backing up the Mini.
Is this possible using Disk Utility? If so, how?
Both computers are running Leopard.
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Jan 29, 2010
I have a 1/3 full external drive that is currently formatted for MAC OS External.
I want to partition the drive in half and use the 2nd partition for Windows FAT32.
However, when I try to do this with Disk Utility it does not give me the FAT32 option.
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Dec 25, 2008
I am using this guide to get a new HD into my PS3: [URL:...] It says that the HD I back my PS3 up to needs to be formatted to FAT32. I have an external HD that I use with my mac, its partitioned into 4 parts. I have one partition which I don't use which I want to back my PS3 onto. In Disk Utility I select that partition and I only get 4 option under the Erase tab, 4 different Mac OS Extended options.
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Mar 25, 2006
i've installed a new Hard disk on My G5 that was before installed in a pc (NTFS), now i'm trying to format it in FAT32 in the Mac!! no way!! i don't know how!
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Dec 26, 2009
if i can partition my Windows NFTS External Hard Drive. I do not want to format it because i have some important files and programs on my External Hard drive, But I also want to use it for Time Machine Backup. I was wondering if it was possible to Not format my Hard drive, Partition it, And then format the 2nd partition to Mac, and use it for time machine. I am using Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8
The Capacity of the EHD is 55.9GB
Available: 37.1GB
Used: 18.8GB
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Oct 27, 2007
I was using my external hard drive with my mac and its formatted in the MAC HF(something like that) file system. I would like to format that external hard drive such that the file system is either NTFS or FAT32 so that I can use it on my windows partition running on boot camp. I am asking this question since I am planning to get a new HD for my mac and use the old one with windows.
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Oct 15, 2009
Probably about 10 years ago I was a big techie with DOS and all that, and now I seem to have forgotten how to do anything!
Two questions.
i) My iMac, which I bought last year has run out of HDD space. What can I do to extend it? I really can't work out what I have filled it up with as I have only
8.5gb in my applications folder
4.7gb in the systems folder
9.1 GB in the libary
40.18GB in the users bit (of which 32gb is music on iTunes)
Other than the standard applications I have a DOS emulator, Office and Spore.
But apparently I have used 200gb?!?!? I can't find where this disk space is being used up. Any ideas on what I can check to clear this out? I put a partition in to possibly install windows, how do I check that's been removed correctly?
Also if I plug in a USB drive to extend the memory how can I get the mac running as if this was actually the normal drive for this computer?
And question ii)
I have a PS3 which I want to back up my info on, but its on a FAT32 format. Can I format a USB HDD in FAT32 using my Mac?
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Mar 18, 2012
I have an external hard drive which I first used with my pc. It is formatted for NTFS. Now with my new MBP, I want to back up data, and I am having no luck. The external hard drive is a Verbatim brand, 500GB. On their website FAT32 download dosnt work! I have tried disk utility with no luck. What am I missing?
Info:
MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), Mac OS X (10.6.8)
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Oct 24, 2008
I'm using an external drive through FireWire 400 on my MacBook Pro with 10.5.5. It's a 320GB with 22GB in "free space" and the rest formatted with HFS+ (used as a Time Machine backup drive). I want to setup that 22GB as a FAT32 partition to be writable in both Windows and Mac. Normally, it sounds like I'm supposed to use Disk Utility on Mac and just choose MS-DOS(FAT). Unfortunately, that choice is not presented. I can choose four different Mac-based file systems, but not FAT. Why doesn't that show up as a choice? I've tried leaving it as free space and using a PC to format it. I've tried formatting it as a Mac-based drive and using the PC to format. I've even tried installing MacDrive on the PC and using that to format it as FAT32.
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May 16, 2012
Ive recently purchased a new external hard drive. I plan to use it on both Apple and Windows OS.
I was told that if I do, then i could corrupt the files/data that I will be accessing on both computers.
Is there a "universal" format for an external drive which would prevent/avoid this kind of thing happening ? How should i format it or which format should i use so that i can use the drive both OS ?
Info:
MacBook Pro (13-inch Late 2011), Mac OS X (10.7)
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Nov 27, 2009
I have an external hard drive that I use to watch movies on a Nintendo Wii and some of the movie files are over 7GB, which means when I format the drive to FAT32 I cannot copy the larger files. What are my options for getting around this problem? I have VMware fusion but I cannot easily see my external drive in XP. Is it possible to format the drive in XP and then transfer everything via VMware on XP?
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Aug 19, 2009
I've got an external drive (320GB) that I'm trying to format as FAT32 using Disk Utility, then create a large (as in, most of the drive) HFS partition.
The problem is that no matter what I do, it will only format the drive as Mac Journaled. It lets me select other options (Mac, FAT32) and goes through the process with no errors or warnings, but when I click on the drive it remains Journaled with a partition of whatever I just selected.
I am sure beyond the shadow of a doubt that I am selecting the drive itself, not the partition, when formatting. This is extremely frustrating. Google searches aren't turning up any clues and I don't know what to do.
I have other external drives formatted as FAT32 with a large Mac partition so I know it's possible.
I need to do this so I can mount the drive on a Windows machine.
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Jan 8, 2009
I just brought a Western Digital 1TB USB drive for my Mac Pro. Now when I try and format it in Mac OSX journaled it keeps coming up in an error saying it can't be done, It will format as FAT32 but I need it to be Mac OSX formatted. Does anyone know what might be wrong?
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May 5, 2009
I just bought a new WD Elements (1tb) and I am getting an error when I try and format. I wish I could tell you what that error says but I was trying to figure something else out so I chose the disk6s1 and formatted it to os extended but it seems like it is frozen. I am afraid if I force quit it will screw up the drive. This is the 2nd one I have tried, I returned the 1st one thinking the drive was faulty. Now I think I screwed up the drive when I formatted it in disk utility. I have installed 2 western digital internal Hard Drives into my Pro and have used 2 other external HDs both western digitals. If there was any problems with any of my HDs, I would open up Disk Utility and Erase them to be Mac OS Extended (My WD TV won't read Journaled drives).
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