- Download AOMEI Partition Assistant and do as the following tutorial to format your drive with a compatible file system for Mac and Windows. Take formatting drive to exFAT in Windows 7 as an example. Take formatting drive to exFAT in Windows 7 as an example.
- Here's how to format a drive if you are planning to use it with a Mac. Launch Disk Utility. Either head to Applications > Utilities, or tap Command + Space and start typing Disk Utility.
This how-to shows you the steps using Disk Utility 13 in OS X 10.10 Yosemite, but the process is the same if you’re using OS X 10.9 Mavericks or 10.8 Mountain Lion. Here are the instructions using OS X 10.11 El Capitan.
Under Partition Information, enter a name for the partition—with a single partition, this is simply the name of the drive. In the Format pop-up menu, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Best Way To Format Drive For Mac
Sometimes you want to wipe out all the data that’s on a hard drive or solid-state drive—erase it and start over. The best way to do this is to format the drive, which both erases the drive and prepares it for storing data by mapping out bad sectors, creating address tables for locating the data on the disk, and more.
How To Format Drive For Windows On Mac
Similarly, you may have purchased a new drive that was formatted for Windows out of the box. You'll want to reformat that drive for your Mac.
But formatting a drive so that it can be used as your Mac’s startup drive requires a slightly different procedure than formatting it for use as a secondary drive for storing data.