I just realized that I ordered the PC version of My passport for my MacBook Pro. Is there an easy way to reformat it for a Mac?
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My Passport ( Western Digital)
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GGJstudios
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Yes, you can use any drive, and it's easy to reformat. Format A Hard Drive Using Disk Utility (which is in your /Applications/Utilities folder)
Choose the appropriate format:
HFS+ (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Don't use case-sensitive)
- Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
- Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! backups of Mac OS X system files.
[*]To Read/Write HFS+ from Windows, Install MacDrive
[*]To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer - Maximum file size: 8EiB
- Maximum volume size: 8EiB
- Mac OS X: Mac OS Extended format (HFS Plus) volume and file limits
- You can use this format if you only use the drive with Mac OS X, or use it for backups of your Mac OS X internal drive, or if you only share it with one Windows PC (with MacDrive installed on the PC)
NTFS (Windows NT File System)
- Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
- Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
[*]To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X, here are some alternatives:- For Mac OS X 10.4 or later (32 or 64-bit), install Paragon ($19.95) (Best Choice for Lion and Mountain Lion)
- For Mac OS X 10.5 and later, including Lion, FUSE for OS X
- For 32-bit Mac OS X, install NTFS-3G for Mac OS X (free) (does not work in 64-bit mode)
- Some have reported problems using Tuxera (approx $36), which is an enhanced version of NTFS-3G with faster performance.
- Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard and later versions, but is not advisable, due to instability.
- AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support NTFS
- Maximum file size: 16 TB
- Maximum volume size: 256TB
- You can use this format if you routinely share a drive with multiple Windows systems.
exFAT (FAT64)
- Supported in Mac OS X only in 10.6.5 or later.
- Not all Windows versions support exFAT. See disadvantages.
- exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
- AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support exFAT
- Maximum file size: 16 EiB
- Maximum volume size: 64 ZiB
- You can use this format if it is supported by all computers with which you intend to share the drive. See "disadvantages" for details.
FAT32 (File Allocation Table)
- Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
[*]Maximum file size: 4GB. - Maximum volume size: 2TB
- You can use this format if you share the drive between Mac OS X and Windows computers and have no files larger than 4GB.
Yep... just plug the drive in and start Disk Utility from /Applications/Utilities. Then select the drive and go to the Erase tab. Now select Mac OS Extended on the dropdown in the middle. Then name the drive whatever you want and click the erase button at the lower right.
This will format the drive to the native Mac HFS+ format, assuming you only plan to use the drive on Macs.
Those drives are all the same, the "Mac only" ones are just preformatted for you.
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I use an NTFS part for Windows 8 File History, an exFAT common part for arbitrary storage, and an HFS+ part for OS X Time Machine. I use a third-party Dashboard widget on OS X to quickly eject all volumes of the external hard disk without Finder bugging me. On Windows 8 I just plug it off because it always is "busy", but won't complain 🙄
Eject Volume. IIRC, if I click on "eject" for one partition of an external hard disk, it chooses to eject them all so I can safely remove the device.