Browse other questions tagged commandline external hdd ext4 format or ask your own question. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Best format for an external hdd in 2019 to be used in macos. Whenever a drive is formatted in linux, it reserves about 5% of the total space on the drive for the operating system to continue using the hard drive to operate, even if it get full. I could go on with the annoyances but in short all we need is to format linux usb drive to recover, repartition and reformat that disk in windows 10.
Open file explorer to the this pc view so that you can see all your drives easily. But you occasionally might need to format one yourself. Jul 21, 2017 most hard drives come preformatted and ready to use these days. External hard drives, flash drives and other similar forms of removable. Linux, windows and a external hard drive how to make. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac laptop mag. Without that, windows just kept wanting to format the drive. It has been the standard format for hard drives and floppy disks so to maximize the compatibility across modern systems including mac, linux, and windows. People might need to format a hard drive or an external hard drive in windows 10 for various reasons. I would like to be able to readwrite from both windows version 7, 64bit and ubuntu linux, and i need support for files greater than 4gb in size so i think this rules out fat32.
Nov 19, 2015 if you format your external hard drive to hfs, you can use it on mac and linux by removing journaling. I can find it under device manager and disk management but thats it. In the value label field, type a descriptive name for the drive. How do i access an external hard drive through bashonubuntuonwindows. Formatting a hard drive can change the file system to make it compatible with your computers operating system, as well as fix any nonphysical errors on the drive itself. May 09, 2017 each hard drive, usb disk has a label on linux. Some hard drives may also include drivers, firmware, or format wizards so be sure to check the user manual before formatting the hard drive. Partition the new disk using fdisk command following continue reading linux hard disk format command. Force format raw, writeprotected or corrupted hard drive successfully. Unfortunately, linux does not yet have support for exfat, but that is reportedly set to.
Windows disk manager is always the first choice for hard drive. In this guide, well show you how to format an external hard drive so you can not only get rid of the. Plug in the external hard drive into the system and open windows explorer by clicking on the computer section in the side bar, you will see your external hard drive get attached to your system. Linux, windows and a external hard drive how to make this work. Some versions of linux can write to ntfs while others may not. How do i format my external hard drive to a very linux compatible file system. How do you fix external hard drive wont format in windows 10. This is a default file system for linux os including raspberry pi. As darnir said, gparted is a suitable tool for this. Install and run aomei partition assistant on your windows 1087 pc.
With a tiny mistake, you may lose data or wrongly format your drive in a way that can lead to data corruption. Windows can read and write to ntfsformatted drives. I got a external hard drive so i just wanted to ask a quick question. How to reformat an external hard drive without losing your data. Locate your external drive from the list of devices and drives. Rightclick on the external hard disk and select format option from context menu. Follow the path applicationsutilities and click disk utility.
For instance, users want to write data to and read data from, to do a clean installation of the windows system, to get rid of a virus or malware, to erase the data before giving the drive to someone else or throwing it away, or some other reasons. You can see the unable to format external hard drive raw marked as unformatted here. Now either because of time, corruption or because it may have been formatted for a mac when i plug it into my pc i cant access it. However, to use it on windows you can hfs explorer read only. Jan 17, 2019 rightclick the new hard drive and select the format option. How to format an external hard drive on windows formatting a hard drive on windows is a simple affair, especially if you leave everything as default. How to format and mount second hard drive on linux geek. Connect your external hard drive with your computer and open windows explorer to check if it can be recognized. If you want to format your external hard drive to work with mac and windows computers, you should use exfat. It doesnt seem to appear in either media, mnt or dev, which seem the common places that people say to look for them in ubuntu systems note. If you have an external drive you only use with windows computers, you may wonder how to format an external hard drive to ntfs effortlessly. The big advantage of the fat32 file system is that its very old. Feb 08, 2012 to partition and format your drive, you can use windows builtin tool called disk management.
If you dont know how to format a hard drive or an external hard drive, youve come to the right place. You will see all disks on your computer in the main interface. How to format an external hard drive the easy way in 2020. The best way to format your hard drive without a windows disc is to obtain a copy of linux any distribution will do and run the installer, making sure that you select options to use the whole. How do you fix external hard drive wont format in windows. How to format a hard drive in windows 1087 techsoup canada. If it is not ticked, you will lose all of your data.
How to format hard drives on windows, mac and linux. The maximum size of the file you can store in the hard drive with fat32 is 4 gb along with 8tb maximum partition size. External hard drive is popular storage device and it can be used to store all kinds of digital information such as images, documents, apps, emails, etc. Aug 30, 2019 plug in the external hard drive into the system and open windows explorer by clicking on the computer section in the side bar, you will see your external hard drive get attached to your system. Feb 28, 2011 whenever a drive is formatted in linux, it reserves about 5% of the total space on the drive for the operating system to continue using the hard drive to operate, even if it get full. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. A partition on a hard drive is a sort of boundary on the device telling each filesystem what space it can occupy. This thing is still unknown for many users but doesnt worry its not complex. In this article, i will talk about some of the basics of storage devices on linux. How to format external hard drive for pc, mac and linux. Here, you will learn three ways to format a hard drive in windows 10 by using disk management, a partition management software and diskpart in command prompt. The main windows disk format, ntfs, isnt supported by macos. This is totally unnecessary for a usb external hard drive if you are only going be using it to store data and not to run an operating system. Next, open a command prompt window as administrator.
You can format a hard disk to fat32 able to format a partition larger than 32gb to fat32, breaking fat32 limit in disk management, ntfs, ext234 and linux swap. Cant see external hard drive formatted by linux, inside windows. Insert the drives usb cable into one of the thin, rectangular slots in your computers casing. How to use external hdd with windowsmaclinuxandroid.
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. You can format the external hard drive or usb drive to make it compatible with both mac and windows machines. But what happens if that drive becomes corrupted, and you have to reformat it to make it accessible again. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and. How do you format a linux hard drive in windows answers. This is because external hard drives in linux unlike windows and mac do not automatically start up so that users can access files. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc.
A there are total 4 steps involved for hard disk upgrade and installation procedure. Disk management and a thirdparty format external hard drive software. Desktop linux storagebackup server external hard drive connected to desktop majority of the time. With what tool should i format a hard drive as udf. How to format a flash drive to fat32exfat ext4 in windows. Choosing the right format for your external hard drive b. How to format an external hard drive on windows 10.
How to reformat an external hard drive without losing your. Select the file system you want to use and give the drive a name. It is annoying as windows seems to be completely unable to recover disk space. Probably the need to format a hard disk is due to an unsuccessful installation of a new os or to some problem of unknown origin. This article shows you how to format an external hard drive via different methods, and you can follow these methods to format external hard drive for pc, mac or linux. Then, it will pop up the format partition window that you can setup. Format windows ntfs hard drive on ubuntu using command line. What if we want to format an external hard drive with ext or linux file systems.
How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. 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. Format external hard drive to linux compatible file system. Formatting windows 7 hard drive will erase all the data on the drive and rebuild a file system. With exfat, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years. Format linux usb drive to recover full disk space in. Since it is an external drive, you might want to format with fat32 or ntfs, so you access the files when moving the disk around to different platforms. If you are techy and use windows and mac computers frequently, then you might need to transfer data between mac and pc. Managing storage devices whether they are internal hard drives, ssds, pcie ssds, or external usb devices is always a tricky task. Hey, i have external hard drive, i want to sometimes format it not necessary do sudo dd ifdevzero ofdevsda1 but just make it empty f, from terminal not gnu i know that gparted may be my friend here the thing is, that if i do sudo mkfs. How to format an external hard drive with pictures wikihow.
Apr 11, 2017 when it comes to formatting a hard drive, external hard drive, usb flash drive, or even an sd card, partition wizard offers more choices on file systems. Format external hard drive to ext4 in command line ask ubuntu. External hdd on bash on ubuntu on windows stack overflow. Oct 16, 2019 the best format for external hard drives. However, linux supports ntfs, which makes for a decent gobetween if you have both windows and linux machines. The best format for your external hard drive the hellotech blog. Apr 16, 2020 the big advantage of the fat32 file system is that its very old. How do i format a hard disk under linux operating system from a shell prompt. Disk management shows the full disk size, cannot format it. Format linux usb drive to recover full disk space in windows 10. For instance, if you have a 4gb thumb drive, you can have a partition on that device taking up the entire drive 4gb, two partitions that each take 2gb or 1 and 3, if you prefer. Now that we know the good and bad about every file system, let see how to format a drive in windows, mac, and linux. How can i format a hard drive as udf so that both windows and linux will be able to use it. Ntfs is native to windows, and most hard drives are preformatted for this file system.
If youre using an imac, you may find the usb ports on the side of your keyboard or on the back of the imacs screen. For example, in the screenshot below, the macformatted drive is disk 2. Please see below on how to reformat your external hard drive on mac and windows. Format external hard drive to ext4 in command line ask. If you own a windows computer, the hard drive in your system is probably running the. Oct 18, 2019 this wikihow teaches you how to change an external usb hard drive s format on windows and mac computers. Also find out the difference between file system i. When doing backups i would be doing it through a local area network. If you can see it in disk management, just rightclick on it and choose format.
How to format external hard drive to ntfs in window1087. Do you save backups of your hard drive onto an external hard drive. You can repartition and format your hard drives in windows using the disk management tool. This video explains, why external hard drive does not work with every operating system and how to solve it. To access the disk management tool, click the windows icon and type disk management. How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive.
For example, formatting typically removes most of the data on a drive, making it a quicker way to erase a large drive than simply deleting everything on it. Linux has its own proprietary ext formats and if you are only going to use your external drive with a linux machine, you can safely go ahead and pick that format. Most hard drives come preformatted and ready to use these days. When it comes to formatting a hard drive, external hard drive, usb flash drive, or even an sd card, partition wizard offers more choices on file systems. Sep 17, 2015 i have a lacie d2 quadra 1tb external hard drive. The biggest reason for reformatting, though, is if you want to. Windows, macos, and linux can all read and write to fat32 drives. Now regarding the format on the external hard drive is there any one file type other then fat that would be able to be read and write off linux and windows os. Oct 08, 2007 formatting linux external hard drive to windows by ziiggee oct 8, 2007 7. How to format new hard drive on windows 10 windows central.
What filesystem to use when using both windows and linux. But unfortunately it bit the dust and i decided to get a pc. Different os has different default file system, and windows default file system is ntfs, os x nfs plus, and linux ext family. Aug 29, 2019 format external hdd not recognized on linux. How do you format an external hard drive to ext4 via the command line in ubuntu. How to reformat my external hard drive for windows 10. This will format the drive as exfat format and your drive is now compatible with both platforms. Under file system, choose the file system you want to use.
Most external hard drives hd are sold in a format called ntfs, which is designed to work with windows. Dec, 2019 now enter the name for the external drive which will be used after formatting and also select exfat for format option and click on the erase. Now that you know which format to use, check out our guide on how to format your hard drive on. For more information see linux partition naming convention and ide drive mappings.
Continue below to format an external hard drive or learn more about disk management. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Use the file system dropdown menu, and select ntfs recommended. After youre done, dont forget to remove the external hard. May 07, 2019 hey, i have external hard drive, i want to sometimes format it not necessary do sudo dd ifdevzero ofdevsda1 but just make it empty f, from terminal not gnu i know that gparted may be my friend here the thing is, that if i do sudo mkfs. How to partition and format your hard drive in windows. Buying and using an external hd is one thing, getting the most out of it is quite another. Therefore, when external hard drive wont format to fat32 or ntfs, you can free download the aomei partition assistant standard,and force format the external hard drive within 3 steps. Linux offers its users gparted and fdisk from the command line. How the stack overflow team uses stack overflow for teams. To find out the label of an external hard drive, open up a. I will be buying a 2tb hard drive soon, and would like to use it as media storage. Mar 09, 2017 managing storage devices whether they are internal hard drives, ssds, pcie ssds, or external usb devices is always a tricky task. Nov 21, 2015 this video explains, why external hard drive does not work with every operating system and how to solve it.