

Under such a circumstance, a professional NTFS driver for Mac like iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is exactly what you need. Because you can read NTFS drive on Mac only and you can't write to this drive normally in this case. However, the NTFS format can be a hassle for users who need to use the same external hard drive on both Mac and Windows. This is because Windows is the most commonly used around the world. Usually, most hard drive manufacturers use the NTFS(New Technology File System) to format their external HDD as a factory standard, including many famous brands such as Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch and WD My Passport. This method suits you most if you just want to use it occasionally on different OS or don't want to lose all the files caused by formatting drive for Mac and PC. If you need to use an external hard drive on Mac that is not completely compatible with your computer OS and you have the urge to format hard drive for Mac and PC, you should know there is a more feasible way to make your external hard drives compatible with your Mac and PC. You can then right-click in the empty space and select New Simple Volume to create a partition and format it with the Windows NTFS or FAT32 file systems.How to make an external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC without formatting If you’re lucky, you can just right-click each partition on the Mac drive and select Delete Volume to remove the partitions. Be sure you’ve identified the Mac drive - if you accidentally delete partitions from another drive, you could damage your Windows installation or lose your files. Locate the Mac drive in the list of disks. This tool allows you to manage the partitions on drives connected to your computer - internal ones or external ones connected via USB. Press Windows Key + R to open the Run dialog, type diskmgmt.msc into the box, and press Enter to open it. RELATED: Understanding Hard Drive Partitioning with Disk Managementįirst, open the Windows Disk Management tool. You’ll probably want to uninstall Java when you’re done.Įrase the Mac Partitions, Including the EFI System Partition HFSExplorer unfortunately requires you install Java to use it, but it’s the only free option here.

If you only have Windows systems available, you can use HFSExplorer to copy files from the drive onto your Windows system drive or another drive. If you have a Mac lying around, you can plug the drive into a Mac and back up the files. Instead, we’ll just be wiping the drive and starting over from scratch. This process won’t actually convert the file system.

First, back up the data on the Mac-formatted drive if you have anything important on it.
