You can use any disk drive on a mac but in order for it to work the drive will need to be formatted. There are places that sell external disks for macs but any drive will do the job. I have also tried to recover data from a mac but could not do this due to the formatted drive being incompatible, so here I will run through a how to partition a drive using your mac for both a windows and mac partition.
I am using a 4GB USB stick for the purpose of this demo but the same will apply to an external disk.
IMPORTANT: ALL DATA WILL BE LOST DURING THIS PROCESS
Step 1 – Open disk utility
Open your disk utility app found in Utilities Click on partition then click current to select 2 partitions then apply.
Step 2 – Change settings on first partition
Highlighting the top partition will allow us to change the settings such as size, Name and format type.
Step 3 – Change settings on second partition
The same will apply to the second partition when selected.
Step 4 – Confirm partition
After clicking on Apply you will be prompted that you are about to partition the disk.
Step 5 – Check partitioning has worked
Here we can see the final disk setup with 2 partitions as we set them up.
Step 6 – 2 Drives on desktop
On the desktop you can see the two different drives that have been created, this is not required for all users but does come in handy when you are doing a lot of data recovery or transfer from macs to windows formatted externals that can not be written to.
You will have to transfer all data on the disk to your desktop whilst you perform the partitioning, then transfer back to the correct partition when you are finished
Contact Us
This information about ow to Format an External Drive has been brought to you by The Electronic Fix Located in Brisbane, Australia. For help with Mac Repairs in Brisbane call (07) 3613 0029 or email us today.
The Electronic Fix in Brisbane and surrounding suburbs offering laptop computer repairs, upgrades and part replacement as well as fixes game consoles. To learn more visit: Alderley, Arana Hills, Ashgrove, Aspley, Enoggera, Everton Hills, Everton Park, Ascot Brisbane, Bridgeman Downs, Carseldine, Clayfield and Services section.
