To begin, open the Finder app and select Applications from the left-hand panel. MacOS doesn't have a Quick Format box, but you can still achieve the same result by tweaking a particular setting.
#Reformat external hard drive for mac and pc full
If you do a full format of your drive, you will lose all your data. To reiterate-it is extremely important to ensure the Quick Format checkbox has a tick in it. Make sure the Quick Format box is ticked and leave all the other settings the same.įinally, click on the Format button and wait for the process to complete. Right-click on the drive's icon to bring up the context menu, then select Format from the list. In the Devices and Drives section of the main window, you should see your external hard drive. Next, open File Explorer, navigate to This PC in the left-hand column and click on the shortcut.
Wait for Windows to recognize the connected drive. The process to reformat an external hard drive on Windows is straightforward.įirstly, connect your external hard drive to your computer using a USB port. We're going to cover both platforms keep reading to learn more. The methodology for the formatting part of the process differs depending on whether you're using a Windows computer or macOS. The process requires you to format your drive, then use data recovery tools to salvage your data. It's perfectly possible to wipe your hard drive without losing all your data. Yes, It Is Possible!Ī quick browse on the web's many tech forums reveals that too many people think "data recovery" and "format drive" are mutually exclusive terms. Thankfully, if you use a few little workarounds, you can reformat an external hard drive without losing everything on it.
It's a lesson in why you should always make an offsite backup with a cloud provider as well as a local copy-but it's too late for that now. But what happens if the drive becomes corrupted? Most people are pretty good at keeping backups of their valuable data on external hard drives.
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