Formatting From a Mac. You can format the remaining space as a second FAT32 partition or as an HFS+ partition, or you can leave it as unallocated space. To create a new partition, click the drive in the list on the left side of the Disk Utility menu. Click the Partition button in Disk Utility's main window. How to Format External Hard Drive for Mac Step 1. Connect your hard drive to your Mac. Open Finder and choose 'Applications Utilities Disk Utility' to launch. Once you open the Disk Utility app, you can see all the drives on your Mac are listed on.
> Erase Data > How to Reformat Western Digital Portable Hard Drive?
by Shirly Chen, 2017-12-28
Citrix workspace for mac. 'Hi, I am going to sell a 2TB WD portable hard drive. I think it is necessary to reformat the WD portable hard drive and permanently erase my private data. Is there any fast way to reformat the WD portable hard drive and erase all the data on the hard drive?' – Norio
>'Hello, I connect my Western Digital portable hard drive with my computer. But my computer can’t recognize the portable hard drive. Is there any way to reformat the portable hard drive to solve this issue?' – Misa
>'My WD external hard drive is attacked by unknown virus, most of the files on the hard drive are infected. I want to reformat the WD external hard drive and permanently erase the virus-infected files.' – Jimmy
Reformatting is the best way to reset the Western Digital (WD) portable hard drive to factory status. Then the WD portable hard drive is able to securely be reused, resold, recycled or donated to other people. Especially, when you are going to throw an old WD portable hard drive into a trash, you’d better reformat it and permanently erase all your private data on it. However, do you know how to reformat WD portable hard drive? There may be lots of methods to reformat a WD portable hard drive on PC or Mac. Today, we will introduce an easy, secure and efficient way to reformat WD portable hard drive.
WD portable hard drive reformatting software for Windows/Mac
In order to reformat WD portable hard drive and permanently erase the data on the WD portable hard drive, we strongly recommend you to use this tool – Super Eraser to help you reformat the WD portable hard drive. Download this WD portable hard drive reformatting software here:
Super Eraser offers certified data erasure algorithms to help in reformatting and erasing WD portable hard drive. Before you use this tool to reformat your WD portable hard drive, make sure all your important data on the WD portable hard drive has been backed up to another hard drive. Once the WD portable hard drive is reformatted by Super Eraser, all the data on the WD portable hard drive will be permanently erased, can’t be recovered by data recovery software.
Easily reformat WD portable hard drive with Super Eraser
Super Eraser can help you efficient reformat WD portable hard drive on PC or Mac. Here, you can follow these steps to reformat WD portable hard drive with Super Eraser.
Step 1: Connect your WD portable hard drive with the computer.
Just connect your WD portable hard drive with the computer which has installed Super Eraser. Then run Super Eraser on your computer.
Step 2: Reformat the WD portable hard drive.
Choose this mode 'Wipe Hard Drive', select the WD portable hard drive, click on 'Wipe Now' button. Super Eraser will reformat the WD portable hard drive and permanently erase all data on the WD portable hard drive.
Super Eraser is 100% safe data erasure software. It will not shorten the service life of the WD portable hard drive even the WD portable hard drive is erased 35 times by this software. Super Eraser also can help you permanently erase files/folders from WD portable hard drive, and wipe the free disk space of the WD portable hard drive.
Related Articles
Recommended Products
Super Eraser
Permanently erase files, folders, data from hard drive and storage media, beyond the scope of data recovery.
Download
Super Eraser for Mac
Permanently and securely erase data from Mac, hard drive or storage device under Mac OS.
Download
Hot Articles
Data Erasure Tips
Format External Hard Drive Mac
Top Solutions
FonePaw - Solution - Eraser - Format A Hard Drive for MacOS
Some people are asking for a way to format a hard drive for Mac. Whether you are trying to backup Mac to an external hard drive, wipe out any personal information and sell the computer, or even use a new operating system, you need to format the hard drive on your Mac or PC.
But before you can do anything, you need to make it clear that the hard drive you want to wipe or format would be an external hard drive or an internal hard drive. We can easily format external hard drive for Mac. But when it comes to format internal hard drive for mac, things are getting a little more complicated. Database software for mac. Maybe we will go through with the way to format a startup drive for Mac later. But now in this guide, we will cover the situation of formatting an external hard drive in steps.
Notice that you need to backup your importanct files on the hard drive you are going to format as the procedure would delete all of the data and bring it back to the factory settings.
Format an external hard drive for Mac
How to Format External Hard Drive for Mac
If you are trying to format Mac external hard drive, you can go over the process step by step:
External Hard Drive Not Recognized
Step 1. Connect your hard drive to your Mac.
Step 2. Open Finder and choose 'Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility' to launch the app on your Mac.
Step 3. Once you open the Disk Utility app, you can see all the drives on your Mac are listed on the left-hand sidebar. Just select the one you want to format and click on the 'Erase' tab.
Format an external hard drive for Mac
Step 4. Now in this interface, you will see a 'Format' option. In this drop-down box, you are allowed to choose different format.
OS X Extended (Journaled) should be selected if you are going to use the drive as a system or 'boot' drive on macOS.
Mac OS Extended should be selected if you will be using the drive as a media or 'scratch' drive on Mac.
Mac OS (FAT) is compatible with both PC and Mac platforms. However, there's a limit to transfer files within 4GB.
ExFAT is similar with Mac OS (FAT) but it can work with files as large as 16EB (exabytes)
So if you are going to use an external drive for both your Windows PC and your Mac, you should choose the ExFAT or FAT format.
Choose format for hard drive
Step 5. Name your drive you like but it would be better to choose something specific, so that you can make things clear every time when you look at its name.
Step 6. Click on the 'Security Options' button and you are able to choose the way (fastest or more secure) to format your external disk. The fastest way will save your time but it erases the drive only by removing the header information. That is to say, you can easily restore the hard drive using a data recovery software if the files haven't been overwritten. It is not good and the format process is meaningless in some way. So maybe you can try the more secure one. It may take quite a long time, but it will erase the drive in a deeper way.
Step 7. Click on the 'Erase' button to start erasing the external hard drive or USB. Formatting a hard drive will take a while and wait for it patiently. Neverwinter nights mac. Once the progress bar is at 100%, the job is done!
How to Recover Formatted Hard Drive on Mac
As it is mentioned above, after formatting a hard drive, all data on the hard drive will be erased. But what if you have second thought and need to recover files from the formatted drive? Is it possible to recover files from formatted drive on Mac? Yes, it is possible. But you'll need FonePaw Data Recovery, a Mac data recovery program that can recover deleted files from hard drive, SD card, USB drive even the drive has been formatted.
DownloadDownload
Step 1. Run FonePaw Data Recovery on your Mac. Remember that you should not install the application on the formatted drive. Otherwise, some of the files could be overwritten by the application.
Step 2. When the application is open, select the files you want to retrieve from the formatted drive. Tick the formatted hard drive. And click Scan.
Step 3. The application will first quickly scan some easy-to-get files on the formatted hard drive. If you need more files. Click Deep Scan to find files that are buried deeper.
How To Reformat External Hard Drive For Mac Os
Step 4. View the results by file types or path. Tick the files you need and click Recover. If you have deleted files that haven't been found, do not save the recovered files on the formatted drive. Instead, save them on other drive, such as your USB drive.
If you have any problem when following the steps to format hard drive for Mac, please leave us a message on the comment box below!
How To Format External Hard Drive For Mac Without Losing Data
Hot Articles
macOS Catalina/Mojave/High Sierra Installation is Stuck or Frozen [Fixed]
SOLVED: White Screen on Mac Computer
Mac Won't Turn On? Here Are Fixes
RE: How to Fix MacBook Stuck on Loading Screen
Mac Screen Goes Black? Here's Why and How
How Can I Fix My MacBook Won't Shut Down
Complete Guide to Format A Hard Drive on Windows 10/8/7
Easiest Way to Recover Files from Formatted Hard Drive
How to Format USB Drive and Recover Files After Formatted