Most External drives come preformatted with the Master Boot Record (MBR) partition scheme. If you are formatting your external drive to use as a recovery drive you will need to format to Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) Navigate to the Utilities folder by using the shortcut Command-Shift-U in the finder or type in “Disk Utility” via Spotlight. That’s pretty much all you need to do, you should now be able to read Mac HFS formatted storage drives on a Windows PC. How to Format a Mac Formatted Drive from Windows. If you’re not concerned about losing the data or contents of the drive and just want to use it with Windows, you can easily format the drive to a Windows-supported format. Insert the flash drive or hard drive you want to format for Windows compatibility. Go to the Applications folder on your Mac’s hard drive, then go to the Utilities folder, and launch Disk Utility. Select the drive you want to format. Warning: the following steps will delete any info you currently have on the drive. Click the Erase button. The stand alone installer knows enough to run Disk Utilty and prep a drive, so you don’t need a formatted drive. When you run the installer it will detect the bare drive and offer to erase, format, partition and install the OS. Just boot up the installer and connect the new drive.
Solution
Most External drives come preformatted with the Master Boot Record (MBR) partition scheme. If you are formatting your external drive to use as a recovery drive you will need to format to Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)
- Navigate to the Utilities folder by using the shortcut Command-Shift-U in the finder or type in “Disk Utility” via Spotlight.
- Plug your external drive into your Mac (you will then see it appear in both disk utility and your desktop)
- Select the external disc (do not select the volume entry which is below)
- Click the Erase tab
- In the format table please select Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) in the list of options
- Click on Erase and confirm that you wish to do this.
- Once the disk has successfully formatted it should know in the Partition Map Scheme that it is GUID Partition Table.
- To remove the disk click on the eject button and remove once it has fully ejected.
By default, your Windows PC can’t access the drives that are formatted in the Mac file system. It’s easier for your PC to read NTFS (Windows file system) and FAT32/exFAT, however, the Windows 10 can’t actually read drives formatted in other file systems that are likely coming from Mac (HFS+) or Linux (ext4).
Format Flash Drive Mac Os Extended Journaled In Windows Media Player
The UFS+ is the file system by Apple’s Macintosh and if you are using a Mac-formatted drive on your PC, chances are it’s not readable by Microsoft Windows 10. The macOS Extended (HFS+) is a file system used by Mac and it can only be read by default in Mac systems, unlike Windows. If you are trying to use a drive formatted in Mac on Windows 10, it’s possible. Here’s how.
Format Flash Drive Mac Os Extended Journaled In Windows 8
How To Read Mac’s UFS Drive On Windows 10
To read drives formatted in Mac on your Windows 10 PC, here’s what you need to do, just follow these simple steps.
- Get this free tool called HFSExplorer for Windows.
- Install and launch the program, you will need Java to use this software. It will prompt you if your system doesn’t have Java installed, if you already have, it will run normally.
- Connect your Mac-formatted drive on your Windows PC and select ‘Load file system from the device’ from File in the menu bar. Click Load.
- You will see the contents of the HFS+ drive in the app window. Choose the files or folders you want to copy, click Extract to copy and save to a specified folder, the files or folders will be copied to the location you choose on your PC.
Don’t expect any fancy UI or any system integration that allows you to access the drive from the Windows Explorer just like you usually do for other drives. This tool is good if you need to get a few files out of the drive, not recommended if you are looking for a chunk of files to extract out of it, the process might be a tad difficult and time-consuming.
Also, the HFSExplorer doesn’t support write access to the drive, if you want to copy anything in the drive, it’s not possible with this tool. Use it if you want to copy the data from the drive. Check on the alternative if you want the read and write access with better integration.
Better Alternative?
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/1/8/8/118892017/237114198.jpg)
An alternative to it is the Paragon HFS+ software that seamlessly integrates into the Windows such that you will be using the drive as you normally do with other drives supported by Windows. Plugging in the drive, and you will see a device connected and shown in the explorer along with your internal drive.
- Get the software Paragon HFS+ for Windows and install it as you would do for other Windows programs.
- That’s it, restart the PC and connect the drive.
- You will be able to see the drive in the explorer which can be accessed by the keyboard shortcut Windows logo key + E or double click on This PC on desktop.
The only downside is that this software is not free, you will spend about $19.95 for it, however, the good part is it offers a 10-day free trial to give it a try. You can either save the money if you are just copying the data or get the write access with system-wide integration for a mere cost.
In the end, it’s now possible to use the Mac drive on Windows, although not in a straightforward way, you may end up using the apps for file transfers or unlikely buying out softwares. It is recommended to format the drive in the exFAT system to get things easier, this helps if you are using the drive frequently on both the systems.
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