Menu
of 05
Hello and welcome to my User Tip. I will explain to you just the basics how storage drives operate in regards to different operating systems, formatting and partitions, especially sharing data with Windows PC's which is the most common asked about issue. Mac OS Journaled is the formatting option for Mac and NTFS or MS-Doc is the formatting option for PC. But to get a hard drive to be compatible for both Mac and PC, you have to choose the exFAT. Mac OSX 10.7.x, and 10.8.x include a built in utility known as Disk Utility that can be used to partition and format a hard drive. To partition and format the drive with Disk Utility, follow these steps. In fact, the low-level formatting work has been performed to each hard drive by manufacturers when it leaves the factory, so usually, users don't need to do such a thing. It should be noted that the low-level formatting is a loss operation, which has a negative impact on the service life of the hard drive.
Partition Your Mac's Hard Drive With Disk Utility
Disk Utility is the application of choice for dividing a hard drive into multiple partitions. It’s straightforward and easy to use, it provides a nice graphical interface, and best of all, it’s free. Disk Utility is included with the Mac OS.
The version of Disk Utility bundled with OS X 10.5 and later has some notable new features, specifically, the ability to add, delete, and resize hard drive partitions without first erasing the hard drive. Best editing program for mac users. If you need a slightly larger partition, or you would like to split a partition into multiple partitions, you can do it with Disk Utility, without losing the data that’s currently stored on the drive.
In this guide, we’ll look at the basics of creating multiple partitions on a hard drive. If you need to resize, add, or delete partitions, check the Disk Utility: Add, Delete, and Resize Existing Volumes guide.
Partitioning is a quick process. It will probably take longer to read this article than to partition your hard drive!
What You Will Learn
- The difference between hard drives, partitions, and volumes.
- How to divide a hard drive into multiple volumes (partitions).
What You Need
- A Mac with OS X 10.5.x through OS X 10.10.x (Yosemite). This guide is specific to OS X 10.5, but it should be usable with earlier versions of the Mac OS. There may be minor nomenclature changes between the versions of Disk Utility included with the various versions of the Mac OS, but overall, the steps should be pretty similar.
- If you're using OS X 10.11.x (El Capitan) or later, then the guide 'Partition a Mac's Drive Using Disk Utility (OS X El Capitan or later)', should be used.
- One or more hard drives to partition.
of 05
Disk Utility - Definitions of Partitioning Terms
Disk Utility makes it easy to erase, format, partition, and create volumes, and to make RAID sets. Understanding the difference between erasing and formatting, and between partitions and volumes, will help you keep the processes straight.
Definitions
- Volume. A volume is a storage container that has been formatted with a file system your computer (in this case, a Mac) can recognize. Volumes are logical constructs; they’re not the same as partitions or physical hard drives. Volumes are most often made up of a single hard drive partition that contains a Mac file system. But it’s also possible for a volume to be made up of multiple partitions, something we won’t address here.
- Partition.The term ‘partition’ is both a verb and a noun. When you partition a hard drive, you physically create separate sections on the hard drive; each of these sections is called a partition. A partition defines a specific area of a hard drive.
- Erase. Erasing is the process of removing all data from a specific volume or hard drive. Data can be erased in multiple ways. The default method on the Mac deletes the data table entries for the location of the file, but does not actually remove the file itself from the hard drive or volume. The practical effect of this is that your Mac no longer sees the file, and the space it uses is now marked as available free space. You can also specify optional erase options that will completely remove the data.
- Format. Formatting a hard drive defines how the hard drive’s media will be laid out to store the computer data. Your Mac can use five different types of formats: Mac OS Extended (Journaled); Mac OS Extended; Mac OS Extended (Case-Sensitive, Journaled); Mac OS Extended (Case-Sensitive); and MS-DOS.
of 05
Disk Utility - Partition a Hard Drive
Disk Utility allows you to divide a hard drive into multiple partitions. Each partition can use one of the five format types mentioned earlier, or a partition can be left unformatted, as free space for future use.
Partition a Hard Drive
- Launch Disk Utility, located at /Applications/Utilities/.
- Current hard drives and volumes will display in a list pane on the left side of the Disk Utility window.
- Hard drives are listed with somewhat cryptic names, usually made up of the hard drive’s size and the manufacturer’s name and model number. A typical hard drive name is 298 GB WDC WD3200. This indicates a 320 GB Western Digital hard drive, with a model number of WD3200. The name lists the formatted size of the hard drive (in this case, 298 GB), not the raw size of the hard drive (in this case, 320 GB).
- Volume names appear as indented entries just below the hard drive they are associated with. There’s nothing to decipher here; a volume’s name in this list is the same as the name it displays on the Mac desktop or in a Finder window.
- Select the hard drive you wish to partition from the list in Disk Utility.
- Click the ‘Partition’ tab.
- Use the dropdown menu under the Volume Scheme heading to select the number of partitions you wish to create on the selected hard drive.
- Disk Utility will display equal-size partitions to fill the available space on the hard drive.
- Before Disk Utility can create volumes from the partitions you choose, you’ll need to select a name, format, and size for each partition.
of 05
Disk Utility - Set the Name, Format, and Size of a Partition
When you select the number of partitions to create, Disk Utility will divide the available space equally between them. In most cases, you won’t want all partitions to be the same size. Disk Utility provides two easy ways to change the sizes of partitions.
Set Partition Sizes
- Click the partition you wish to change.
- Enter a name for the partition in the ‘Name’ field. This name will appear on the Mac desktop and in Finder windows.
- Use the Format dropdown menu to select a format for this partition. The default format, Mac OS Extended (Journaled), is a good choice for most uses.
- Use the ‘Size’ field to set a size for the partition. The size is entered in GB (gigabytes). Press the tab or enter key on your keyboard to see a visual display of the resulting partition changes.
- You can also interactively adjust partition sizes by dragging the small indicator positioned between each partition.
- Repeat the process for each partition, so that all partitions have a name, format, and final size.
- When you’re satisfied with your partition sizes, formats, and names, click the ‘Apply’ button.
- Disk Utility will display a confirmation sheet, showing the actions it will take. Click the ‘Partition’ button to continue.
Disk Utility will take the partition information you supplied and divide the hard drive into partitions. It will also add the selected file system and name to each partition, creating volumes your Mac can use.
of 05
Disk Utility - Using Your New Volumes
Disk Utility uses the partitioning information you supply to create volumes your Mac can access and use. When the partitioning process is complete, your new volumes should be mounted on the desktop, ready to use.
Before you close Disk Utility, you may want to take a moment to add it to the Dock, to make it easier to access the next time you want to use it.
Keep Disk Utility in the Dock
- Right-click the Disk Utility icon in the Dock. It looks like a hard drive with a stethoscope on top.
- Select ‘'Keep in Dock' from the pop-up menu.
When you quit Disk Utility, its icon will remain in the Dock for easy access in the future.
Aug 31,2019 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions
External hard drives are the storage devices used to store and retrieve digital information, personal and official data like files, documents and other stuff. These are attached to systems through FireWire or USB connection or wirelessly to transfer data from the internal drive to hard disk drives. If you are looking for new operating system or selling your old computers or laptops, then you need to set up an external hard drive for backups by erasing and formatting the existing data in the storage devices.
Part 1: How to Format an External Hard Drive on Windows
The Windows users who are going to format external hard drive for the first time, they will get complete information and stepwise procedure of formatting drives.
Stepwise Procedure to Format Storage Device on Windows:
- Before formatting an external hard drive on Windows, back up all the informational data like files, music and official data into safe place.
- To format an external hard drive, plug in the device into system or a wall outlet.
- After plug in hard drive into the system, you will get option to open Windows Explorer and by clicking on the computer section in the side bar, you will see your hard drive get attached to your system.
- When you will do right click on the hard drive icon, you will get option to choose 'Format'?.
- After that, you can opt any file system that you want to use for the operating systems.
- Mention your hard drive with a name under Volume Label and check out the Quick Format box.
- To initiate the formatting process, click on the start button and within a few seconds, you will get notification when the process get completed.
- Open the hard drive in Windows Explorer and start dragging documents and files into it.
Follow the stepwise procedure to format an external hard drive and make sure it will not show similar free space as it displays on the box as the systems determine the space differently as it is marked on the box. No sleep program for mac.
Video Tutorial on How to Format External Hard Drive
Part 2: How to Format an External Drive on Mac
Mac users can select any file system that supports their operating system. In order to format an external drive on Mac, you can follow stepwise procedure as discussed below:
Stepwise Procedure to Format Storage Device on Mac: Search for program files on mac.
- Before starting storage device formatting process, you need to backup all informational data in a separate folder for the future use.
- Plug in the storage drive into Mac.
- The drive when get connected to the system, you can see the storage device icon on the screen.
- Now open the finder and check out the applications/utilities. After that, operate double click on the disk utility.
- To format external hard drive, opt your storage device in the left hand sidebar and click on the erase tab.
- After that, you will see format menu where you can select the file system that are compatible with your operating system.
- Describe or provide a specific name to your drive and click on erase button. Within a short time span, your storage device will get formatted.
- When you are done with the formatting process, click on the hard drive in the finder and initiate the dragging process or you can also set up as a backup storage device with Time Machine.
By following the stepwise procedure mentioned above, you can easily format the storage device on Mac.
What is External Hard Drive Formatting Process?
Formatting external hard drives is a process of deleting or erasing the memory chunks to avail the space for new data. Formatting can be performed at two stages: low level and high level process. Formatting may take few hours to wipe out the existing data, but the process can be hassle-free if you get to know about stepwise instructions of how to format an external hard drive.
Low level formatting is the first process of wiping out data and existing files in the hard disk devices and at the high level, a new file system is generated. Technically, it is the process of writing a new directory structure which allows the documents and files to be overwritten and create space for the new data.
Before formatting external hard drives, backup all important data that you are going to format. Most external hard devices come with backup software that will make process much easier to do. If you have documents, music, photos saved elsewhere on computer then make sure you have copied all stuff before formatting. Remember once all the data get formatted, it will not be recovered at any cost.
File System Explained:
Before proceeding to format external hard drive, you need to know about file systems which are particularly associated with the operating systems. File systems are the key parts of translation from the physical data recording on a hard drive to the files that are read by operating systems only.
Various operating systems like Mac, Windows, Linux and OS X have different file systems to organize and store digital information. The most popular file systems are as discussed below:
Partition Program For Mac
- NTFS (New Technology File System): NTFS is developed by Microsoft, started with Windows NT 3.0. It is also known as Window's default file system. Microsoft has launched five versions of NTFS: v1.0 released with Windows NT 3.1, v1.2 with Windows 3.51, v3.0 with Windows 2000, v3.1 and v5.0 with Windows XP. The latest version includes many features like disk usage quotas, link tracking distribution, reparse points, file-level encryption and sparse file support. Windows can write and read to NTFS formatted hard drives while OS X and Linux can read only but can't write unless it is supported by third party devices like NTFS-3G. It has maximum 16 TB file size and 256 TB volume size.
- FAT 32 (File Allocated Table): It was designed in year 1977 for floppy disks and three major file systems variants are: FAT12, FAT16 and FAT 32. The older version of FAT was quite simple and robust. FAT32 has come up with the increased number of bits which is used to address clusters. It also helps to reduce each cluster size due to which it will have great storage capacity and effectively support the large disks up to 2 TB. It can be written and read to by Linux, OS X and Windows. FAT32 offers maximum 4GB file size and 2 TB volume size.
- ExFAT (Extended File Allocated Table): It is quite similar to FAT32 and is less commonly used. ExFAT can store up to 4GB files which make it perfect for flash drives. ExFat formatted drives can be read and written by OS X and Windows.
- HFS Plus (Hierarchical File System): It is developed by Apple Inc. It serves as primary file system of OS X and also known as Mac OS Extended. For those who are operating Windows on Mac with Boot Camp, they can read HFS plus hard drives but can't write to them. However, third party tools like Paragon HFS+ assist the users to write and read to HFS+ drives. HFS plus offers 8 EiB maximum file size and volume size.
These are the popular file systems for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. For those who are running Windows computer, they can format hard drive as NTFS and for the Mac users; ExFAT will be the best and reliable option. Before formatting external hard drives, make sure you have created backup for the all important digital data. Nowadays, it is also possible to convert hard drive without losing any>Recover Your Drive