Part 2: Format External Hard Drive for Mac with Disk Utility. Formatting an external hard drive would erase everything on it. Hence, you must backup your important files before reformatting the drive if you want to save them. The easiest way is to drag it from one drive to another. All is set, then you can go ahead to format the drive on your Mac.
- How To Reformat Macintosh Hdmi
- How To Reformat Macintosh Hdd
- How To Format Macintosh Hd
- How To Reformat Macintosh Hd
How To Reformat Macintosh Hdmi
Launch Disk Utility. Either head to Applications Utilities, or tap Command + Space and start typing Disk Utility. Once Disk Utility is open you'll see the list of available drives on the left. A drive can be used on any type of computer - PC or Mac. But in order for the computer and drive to communicate with one another, the drive has to be formatted with the correct file system. This article explains about file systems and provides instruction to format a drive on Windows and Mac. Assign a name (or stick with Macintosh HD) and select a format. Note: For file format, you should choose either APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Disk Utility shows the recommended format. How to format a startup drive for a Mac If you want to format a drive that will be used as your Mac's startup disk, the procedure is a little different from formatting it for use as a secondary.
Most users use Disk Utility to erase a disk or hard drive. But some Mac users might need to erase them from the command line on 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.
How To Reformat Macintosh Hdd
Here I'll show you how you can erase and format a disk using the command line.
Working with TerminalStart off by running the following command in the command line: Diskutil list
This is going to list all the mounted drives on your Mac.
How To Format Macintosh Hd
Most users use Disk Utility to erase a disk or hard drive. But some Mac users might need to erase them from the command line on 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.
How To Reformat Macintosh Hdd
Here I'll show you how you can erase and format a disk using the command line.
Working with TerminalStart off by running the following command in the command line: Diskutil list
This is going to list all the mounted drives on your Mac.
How To Format Macintosh Hd
Once you have found the proper drive to erase, just copy its identifier so you can use it for the next command. Then pick a name and a system format type. This is the syntax we need: Diskutil eraseDisk FILESYSTEM DISKNAME DISKIDENTIFIER
Let's say the disk I want to erase has '/dev/disk5s2' as its identifier and I'm going to use Mac OS Extended Journaled (JHFS+) as the system format type and name it 'Empty'. The syntax is going to look like this: Diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ Empty /dev/disk5s2
It's important to keep in mind that if you run the eraseDisk command, the target disk is going to lose all its data, so make sure you are erasing the proper disk.
How To Reformat Macintosh Hd
If you need different system format types, here are a few references you could use instead of JHFS+:
- Mac OS Extended: HFS+
- MS-DOS fat32: FAT32
- ExFAT: ExFAT
