Yo just got a new external hard drive and want to use it on your Mac. However, the Mac OS does not allow you to write data to the drive. You may wonder how to reformat an external hard drive on Mac. Follow the tutorial below, you'll get everything covered.
- How To Use Transcend Hard Drive On Mac Pro
- How To Use Transcend Hard Drive On Mac Os
- How To Use Transcend Hard Drive On Mac Computers
- How To Use Transcend Hard Drive On Mac Drive
We propose you formatting your external hard drive to FAT32 or exFAT for supporting windows and Mac OS.We have released the Transcend Elite for Mac. The files encrypted by Transcend Elite for Windows can be decrypted using Transcend Elite for Mac and vice versa.
Bonus: How to Recover Data from Formatted External Hard Drive on Mac
- Connect the external hard drive to your Mac and copy the important data to the Mac PC. Now connect the external hard drive to Windows 8 computer and format it in FAT32 file system. Now you would be able to use the external hard disk on both the computers. Also refer to this link: Drives, partitions, formatting w/Mac's + PC's.
- Summary: This blog briefs you about the Transcend Hard drive and reasons that lead to data loss from Transcend internal/external hard drives.It also highlights the common fixes that a user can adopt to ensure a safe and reliable Transcend Hard Drive Data Recovery.
- How to Backup a Mac to an External Hard Drive. Insert your drive and use the Disk Utility app to format it. Open two Finder windows. One should show your internal drive, while the other should.
Reformatting an external hard drive for use with Mac OSX is not as difficult as it might seem. In a few simple steps you are ready to go and can save your back-up files to the external drive, keeping your information safe and giving you peace of mind. Keep in mind that a MAC can generally read other file formats, but for the best performance and to create a bootable disk, formatting exclusively for MAC is required.
Part 1: Which File Format You Should Choose?
Before you begin formatting the drive, there are a few things to do. The most important, you should decide which format to use.
There are a few file formats you can use, but it depends on the purpose you want to use the drive for. Which one is right for your circumstance? We'll describe them here, you'll know your choice after reading the details.
APFS: This is the default file system in Macs with High Sierra. It is efficient and reliable. However, it won't be readable and usable on machines that are not running Mac High Sierra, and Windows or Linux PCs. What's more, it is compatible with SSD and flash storage devices only.
Mac OS Extended (Journaled/HFS+): If you didn't update your Mac OS to High Sierra, the default file system on your Mac shoule be Mac OS Extended. Mac OS Extended (encrypted) would be an ideal option if you probably carry your laptop or external drive here and there. You can encrypt it so that no one can access the contents on your drive.
MS-DOS FAT (aka FAT32): In addition to Mac, it can also be written and read by Linux and Windows. It enables you to regularly share files with your friends who own a PC. Nevertheless, this older file system is limited to no more than 4GB and there might be security issue and disk errors.
ExFAT: It is similar to ExFAT which can be read by both Windows and Mac, but it can store more than 4GB files.
NTFS: As the default file system in Windows, it can only read by Mac OS, writing to it is not available. Luckily, there are third-party tools to help you do so.
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. Disk utility - the MacOS utility application can help you with this. Just follow these steps below:
Step 1. Connect the external drive or the USB drive to the MAC.
Step 2. Start the Disk Utility, located under Applications > Utilities.
Step 3. Find the name of the drive in the left side of the Utilities window and select it. And click Erase button.
Step 4. Follow on-screen prompts to choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system and allow the disk to format.
Bonus: How to Recover Data from Formatted External Hard Drive on Mac
In case you forgot to backup files before formatting the external drive. Here comes the cure - iMyFone AnyRecover - a one-stop solution to recover deleted, lost or formatted files from Mac.
Follow these simple steps using AnyRecover to get your files back!
Get Ready!
First, download and install AnyRecover, following on-screen prompts to accomplish the task.
AnyRecover 20% off Coupon Code: ANY-ART-D20
Don't miss the opportunity to get AnyRecover license at the lowest price on the market. Don't know how to apply it, check the instructions here:
Get Set!
1. After loading AnyRecover, plug your external hard drive into your Mac directly or via USB.
2. Next select the drive under 'External Removable Devices' tab, click 'Start' to begin scanning lost files on the drive.
Go!
Don't miss the opportunity to get AnyRecover license at the lowest price on the market. Don't know how to apply it, check the instructions here:
Get Set!
1. After loading AnyRecover, plug your external hard drive into your Mac directly or via USB.
2. Next select the drive under 'External Removable Devices' tab, click 'Start' to begin scanning lost files on the drive.
Go!
1. AnyRecover takes a moment to scan your drive. Once done, it will list out all scanning results by file type.
2. Double click a single file to preview it before recovery.
3. Select the files and press Recover to get them back.
What If?
What if my files were not found? Fear not. We can take this a step further. Enable 'Deep Scan' to try one more time, follow the steps above just as before to locate and recover your files.
It is plain to see that AnyRecover for Mac is a tool worthy of top shelf treatment in your arsenal of items that are used to defend, recover and keep your system up and running. Don't get caught without the file you need for that meeting or stumbling looking for baby photos that were stored on disk and suddenly 'hid' from your view. Allow AnyRecover to find and recover your lost files. AnyRecover is easy to use but provides sophisticated results that mean you know what you're doing!
I bought a brand new external hard drive (disk) Transcend StoreJet 25M3 1Tb. A Transcend company says that it can be used on both Windows and macOS. But most drives (from any manufacturer) come formatted in the NTFS file system format for OS Windows, while for macOS we needed the HFS+ format or the Apple's brand new APFS (Apple File System) format. macOS can read but not write to NTFS formatted drives. So the only workaround is to format the disc to HFS+ or APFS.
The easiest way to format the disc is by using macOS built-in Disk Utility app, but problems are very possible. For many people a hard drive becomes unusable after using the Disk Utility app. You can read more about the issue in this article. Therefore, to avoid problems, I prefer a very old and proven method. We will use the Terminal app and two tools diskutil and dd. Both tools are built-in in macOS, so we do not need to download or install anything. Let's get started.
Critical! The instructions in the article below are designed to help repartition and format a hard drive. This process is data destructive and cannot be undone. Once the process begins, all the data on the drive will be lost!
Be careful working with disks in the terminal. Incorrect actions can lead to data loss and even computer failure.
Launch the Terminal app from the Utilities folder of your Applications folder, or use Spotlight to find it.
How To Use Transcend Hard Drive On Mac Pro
Firstly we need to identify the mount name of our disk (hard drive): Mac mini usb camera.
There are two types of devices (methods to communicate with devices):
- raw devices
/dev/rdisk*, communication is direct with the disk. - buffered devices
/dev/disk*, data transit via buffer.
When using dd or other duplication programs, always use raw device.
The below commands assume this is disk2, but replace disk2 with the correct disk if it's something different.
Before any operations on the disk we must unmount it:
Warning! Do not forget to replace the disk2 before pressing the key Enter.
Now we will write zeros to the disk (this will erase the entire disk):
How To Use Transcend Hard Drive On Mac Os
Warning! Do not forget to replace the rdisk2 before pressing the key Enter.
This command will prompt us to enter our computer password. Enter your password and then watch the magic happen…
Note! It's normal that the password you enter is not displayed. This is how the password is entered on the command line. Just enter your password, and then press the Enter key.
Let's now partition the disk. This will be the GUID Partition Table (GPT) and the Journaled HFS+ format of file systeme:
Note! Replace 'Transcend' with the name that you want to give to your hard drive.
Note! To get Master Boot Record (MBR) instead of GUID Partition Table (GPT), simply replace the 'GPT' mention to 'MBR'. That should work.
Warning! Do not forget to replace the disk2 before pressing the key Enter.
Conclusion
That's it, you're done. Our brand new hard drive is ready for use with macOS. So simple isn't it?
We can leave our hard drive in the HFS+ format or convert it from HFS+ to the Apple's brand new APFS (Apple File System) format using the Disk Utility app. You can read more in this article.
If this article has helped you then please leave a comment
Thanks for reading!
How To Use Transcend Hard Drive On Mac Computers
Arthur is a designer and full stack software engineer. He is the founder of Space X-Chimp and the blog My Cyber Universe. His personal website can be found at arthurgareginyan.com.
How To Use Transcend Hard Drive On Mac Drive
