Any dvd converter mac free download. If your system runs an old operating system, the FAT32 format is recommended instead. As for macOS, your formatted pen drive will be incompatible with anything older than Mac OS X Snow Leopard. The second caveat is that the exFAT format has no journaling option. Journaling is a characteristic found in file types such as the FAT32 format.
- Format HDD to EXFAT under Mac OS 1. Please turn off hard drive, and connect it to Mac OS via supplied usb cable; 2. Mac Book Home page, pls click Lanchupad- Disk Utility 3. Pls follow step 1 then step 2(External—Erase).
- How to reformat a disk to FAT32 on a Mac.Technical notes: Formatting a disk using Windows maxes out the partition at 32GB, but not if the formatting is done us.
If you have an external hard drive or USB flash drive that you'd like to use on both Macs and Windows PCs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing. Learn a few ways to make your drive Mac and PC friendly. Hp utility scan to computer mac.
Need to access or transfer files between Mac and PC? As simple as this task sounds, it's not very straightforward for inexperienced users. Since Mac OS X and Windows use totally different file systems, the way a drive is formatted can determine what type of computer it will work with. In fact, there are four ways you can format an external or USB flash drive to achieve varying degrees of compatibility between Macs and PCs. Let's take a look at them:
HFS+
Mac OS X's native file system is HFS+ (also known as Mac OS Extended), and it's the only one that works with Time Machine. But while HFS+ is the best way to format drives for use on Macs, Windows does not support it. If you're only going to be using your external or USB flash drive with certain PCs – such as at home or the office – you might be interested in a program called MacDrive. When you install MacDrive on a Windows PC, it will be able to seamlessly read & write to HFS+ drives. Hard drive formatted for mac how to use on windows. This isn't a good solution if you need your drive to work on any PC without installing software, though.
NTFS
The native Windows file system is NTFS, which is only partially compatible with Mac OS X. Macs can read files on NTFS drives, but it cannot write to them. So if you need to get files from a PC to your Mac, NTFS is a decent option. However, you won't be able to move files in the other direction, from Mac to PC.
Exfat Format Mac
FAT32
The most universally supported way to format your drive is with the FAT32 file system. It works with all versions of Mac OS X and Windows. Case closed, right? Well, not so fast. Unfortunately, FAT32 is a very old file system and has some technical limitations. For example, you cannot save files that are larger than 4GB on a FAT32-formatted drive. This is a deal-breaker if you work with huge files. The other limitation is the total size of the partition. If you format your FAT32 drive in Windows, the drive partition cannot be larger than 32GB. If you format it from a Mac running 10.7 Lion, the drive partition can be up to 2TB. Much better, except for that pesky 4GB limit.
exFAT
The exFAT file system eliminates the two major deficiencies of FAT32: the largest partition and file sizes it supports are virtually unlimited by today's standards. Awesome, it's perfect! Almost… since exFAT is fairly new, it isn't compatible with older Macs and PCs. Any Mac running 10.6.5 (Snow Leopard) or 10.7 (Lion) supports exFAT, while PCs running Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP1, and Windows 7 are compatible. If you know you'll be using computers running updated versions of these operating systems, exFAT is the clear best choice.
Exfat Vs Mac Os Journaled
Format a drive using Disk Utility on a Mac
Mac Os Format Exfat
- Launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities).
- Select your external hard drive or USB flash drive from the list on the left.
- Click on the Erase tab. Select the format – Mac OS Extended (HFS+), MS-DOS (FAT32), or exFAT – then name the drive.
- Click the Erase button and the drive will start formatting. Be aware that formatting a drive deletes all of the files on it, so back up anything important before completing this step.
Format a drive using Windows
- Go to Computer (or My Computer in Windows XP).
- Select your drive from the list and right-click on it. Choose Format from the contextual menu.
- A window will pop up where you can choose the format – NTFS, FAT32, or exFAT. Make sure the allocation unit size is set to default and type in a volume label.
- Click Start to format the drive.
TL;DR version
For Mac OS X to read-write exFAT formatted HDD, two options
- Format using Mac:
- Disk Utility ->
- Erase ->
- choose exFAT ->
- OK
- Format using Windows:
- My Computer ->
- Right Click HDD ->
- Format ->
- choose exFAT ->
- AUS 128 kilobytes->
- Start
Background
Turns out exFAT exists so that Mac and Windows can co-exist harmoniously. There are many forum discussions and how-toarticlesoutthererecommending exFAT if you want to share files between Mac and Windows.
What most of them failed to mention is the correct allocation unit size / cluster size necessary for the harmonious relationship to work. Most of them talked about what the allocation unit size does, which might be misleading for the purpose of getting it up and running seamlessly.
My Story
I want to use an external HDD as the scratch disk for a video editing project on a Mac OS X 10.7.5. But my files are on my Windows 8.1 laptop HDD, which was formatted in NTFS. By default, Mac OS X can only read but not write to NTFS HDD. Of course there are NTFS read-write solutions out there for Mac. Among them Tuxera NTFS, Paragon NTFS, or NTFS-3G FUSE.
Disclaimer: I have not tried Tuxera or Paragon. I used NTFS-3G FUSE from 2009-2013 on my Macbook Snow Leopard, so far so good. I have not tried it on later versions of Mac OS X. There is a high chance of it not working on OS X 10.7 and later (see Known Issues).
Then I found out that if I format the HDD in exFAT, it should work for both Windows and OS X. I figured that since most of my files are videos with BIG file sizes, I chose 4096 kilobytes for the AUS. It formatted nicely. But lo and behold, OS X doesn't even recognize the HDD. I tried to force mount it but nope, it doesn't work.
So I figured that if I use OS X's Disk Utility to format, it should work for both Mac and Windows. This time it works! Turns out Disk Utility formatted the HDD with 128 kilobytes AUS (131072 bytes divide by 1024).
Just for kicks, I used Windows to format it again with AUS 128 kilobytes. Yeap, it works.
Exfat Mac Os Compatibility
Conclusion
128 kilobytes is the harmonious constant between Windows and Mac OS X 10.7.5. Use 128 kilobytes AUS while formatting a HDD so that it works for both Windows and Mac OS X.
