Having an external hard drive is advantageous as you can store tons of data on it. Moreover, it is small, light weight and not attached to your computer. This makes it quite handy and allows you to transfer your data from one computer to another easily.

Mar 06, 2019 Reformatting external hard drive on Mac is a bit different because it doesn't have the option of quick formatting, but it still has the same option with a different name. Follow the steps given.

1. Dec 29, 2015 The instructions below are for Windows 10, but other versions of Windows from Windows 7 and up can also format an external drive as exFAT for use with Mac as well. Connect the drive to your.
2. . If your external hard drive is unallocated, you can right-click the unallocated space, choose Create Partition. In the create partition window, choose exFAT under the File System tab. Then, click Apply - Proceed. After that, you can use your external hard drive on both Mac and Windows machine.

As you connect your external drive to different computers, it might get infected if the host computer is not secured. And in worst case scenarios, chances are the drive would no longer be recognized by your system.

Well, worry not, we have solution for you. Whenever an external storage device gets infected, it is highly recommended to format the device to make it operable.

In this post, let’s talk about how to erase and format external hard drives on Mac and Windows.

Erase and Format External Hard Drive on Mac

Step 1: Open your Mac and connect your external hard drive with it.

Step 2: Type Disk utility in the spotlight search or click ‘Go’ from the top toolbar and select ‘Disk Utility’.

Note: There is another way to open ‘Disk Utility’, Go to Finder icon > choose Application > Click on utilities > Disk Utility.

Step 3: Choose the external hard drive from the left-hand side which you would like to format.

Step 4: Select ‘Erase’ tab.

How To Format An External Hard Drive For Windows 10 ..

Step 5: Select ‘Mac OS Extended (Journaled)’ beside ‘Volume Format’.

Step 6: Enter a name for the external hard drive in the Name field.

Step 7: Once you hit ‘Erase’ button it will prompt you “Are you sure you want to erase the disk’, So, click Erase to Proceed.

Now, your external hard drive is formatted and is as good as new.

Also Read: Best Free Batch Image Resizer for Mac 2017

How to Erase and Format an External Hard Drives on Windows

Step 1: Go to ‘Start’.

Step 2: Right-Click on Computer.

Step 3: Select the second option ‘Manage’ from the right-click menu.

Step 4: On management window, choose ‘Disk Management’ from the storage.

Step 5: Now, select the drive which you would like to erase and format.

According to statistics, more than half of the computer users have the experience of being attacked by virus and some of them are even frequently bothered by it, failing to get rid of this issue.Definitely, the most annoying thing during virus attack is claimed to be struggling to recover files deleted by virus attack.Imagine this: your presentation files, which were planed to show in the company meeting the next day are totally lost from computer when virus is detected, how depressed you will be. Email worm virus. Believe us, encountering virus is a fairly common occurrence.

Step 6: Right-click on the drive and select ‘Format’.

Step 7: Choose the ‘File System’, (you can select ExFAT or FAT32).

Also Read: How to Recover Permanently Deleted Files in Windows 10

Note: Make Sure, you do not “Perform a quick format” as it doesn’t erase the entire data on drive.

Step 8: Hit ‘OK’. Your machine will prompt you to confirm. After confirmation, your drive will start formatting. Swat 4 voice commands.

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Note: Be patient while formatting your drive, as it might take a bit longer depending upon the size.

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Formatting your external hard drive will erase all data available on the drive. In case if you’re formatting a drive that you have used before, don’t forget to copy important files you might require in future.

Format External Hard Drive Mac