format external hard drive for mac and pc

Move the disk back to the Windows system and see if you can still access it and read the test file(s) you put on the NTFS partition.Leave at least one test file on it, but don't fill it with data. Move the disk to your Mac and use the Mac's partitioning software to create an HFS+ partition in the unpartitioned space on the disk.Leave at least one test file on it, though. Test the NTFS partition in Windows, but don't fill it with data just yet.Using Windows tools, create an NTFS partition for Windows at the start of the disk, leaving the rest of the disk unpartitioned.

Using whatever software you like, erase all the partitions from the disk.You might want to employ that same rule here: One rule of thumb in the past was to use partitioning tools in a given OS to create partitions for that OS. Although the hybrid MBR should work OK with your Windows system, it's conceivable that it won't, or it might be interacting badly with a removable disk, so you might want to avoid it. For the rest of my answer, I'll assume you're talking about a removable disk that you're moving between two computers.Īnother potential issue is that OS X partitioning software (at least, as of a year or two ago I haven't checked recently) creates a hybrid MBR if you put a FAT or exFAT filesystem on a partition. If so, at least part of the solution would be to put the Windows partition first on the disk. This is definitely how Windows treats USB flash drives, but I'm not sure if it treats removable hard disks in the same way. Is this an external disk that you're moving between a Mac and a Windows PC? If so, it's conceivable that Windows is refusing to access anything beyond the first partition on the disk.

Format external hard drive for mac and pc