How Do I Format Hard Drive For Mac



Apr 17,2020 • Filed to: Hard Drive Recovery • Proven solutions

The reasons for wanting to format your Mac storage drive may vary depending on immediate need. Some people may want to format a storage because they want to Clean hard drive Mac and others might want to install fresh OS X. The good news is the Disk Utility built into the OS X comes in handy, like a visual assistant making the process easier. May 30, 2014 What you want to do is quite easy. You do not want to format the drive though for Mac. The best partition scheme for a drive that will be used for both Mac and Windows is to format it exFAT, and its actually easier to do it in Windows than on the Mac side. In Windows just right click on the drive and select Format.

“I have been using a Toshiba Hard Drive from a long time, and now I’m planning to use it with my Mac. How can I format my Toshiba Hard Drive for Mac?”

A Hard Drive when being used on a particular OS contains the Drivers and Dictionaries of that OS, and it also runs the File System best suited for the same OS. Thus, when you are planning to use the same Hard Drive on any other OS, particularly MacOS, it is always suggested to format your Hard Drive for Mac. Formatting your Toshiba Hard Drive for Mac is important, as it makes the Hard Drive best suitable for the Mac by formatting it with the OS-specific File System and Drivers. And it also wipes out all the bugs and harmful files that might harm your Mac. Go through this article and find out the easiest way to format your Toshiba Drive for Mac.

Part 1. Why Should you Backup Your Toshiba Hard Drive before Formatting it for Mac?

Whenever you are planning to format your Toshiba Hard Drive for Mac, it’s always suggested to take a backup of the Drive you are going to format. It’s necessary and good for your data because the process of formatting your Toshiba Hard Drive to be used on Mac also includes erasing of all the data from the Drive. Thus, if you take a Backup of all your data before formatting your Toshiba Hard Drive, then it will be super easy for you to restore all the lost data.

So, let’s suppose you are using the Drive on your Windows but you now need to format it to use it on Mac. Let’s take a backup of the Drive on the Windows.

On your Windows home screen search for “Control panel”, and then on the Control Panel window, navigate to “Control Panel > System and Security > Backup & Restore (Windows 7)”. Now, on the “Backup & Restore (Windows 7)” window, click on the “Set up Backup” option under the “Backup” section. Follow the wizard by choosing your Destination Drive and customizing the Backup.

As soon as you complete the process, Windows will start to take a backup, and once done, you can proceed with the process of formatting your Toshiba Drive for Mac.

Part 2. How to Format your Toshiba Hard Drive for Mac? The Easiest Method

It’s very easy to format your Toshiba Hard Drive for Mac. All you need to do is to follow some easy steps on your Mac. Once you format your Drive for Mac, it becomes totally compatible to be used with your Mac and Time Machine. All the Drivers and the dictionary of other Devices will get wiped and the new dictionaries of your macOS will get installed.

Follow the steps to format your Toshiba Hard Drive for Mac

Step 1 Connect your Toshiba Hard Drive to your Mac using a compatible medium and make sure the connection remains uninterrupted.

Step 2 Now, go to the “Applications” folder on your Mac, and launch the “Disk Utility” from the “Utilities” folder.

Step 3 On the Disk Utility window, you will see two panels. Look for your Drive listed on the left panel, and then select the Drive. On the Main panel, go to the “Erase” tab squeezed between First Aid and Partition.

Step 4 On the Erase tab, you will see two options i.e. Format and Name. Now, choose “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” option from the drop-down menu in front of the Format option, and change or edit the Name if you wish to.

Step 5 Once done, simply click on the “Erase” tab, confirm the action by choosing “Erase” again on the next dialogue box. This will format your Toshiba Drive for Mac.

Once you successfully format your Toshiba Drive using this method, your Drive will work best with your Mac.

Part 3. Recover the Lost Data from Toshiba Hard Drive after Formatting – Use Recoverit (IS) Tool

Formatting a Hard Drive means all the data of the Drive will get erased from it permanently. If in case, you forgot to take a backup of your Drive before formatting it, or you accidentally format your Drive, then all of your data will get lost permanently, and you will not be able to restore it from anywhere. If the data lost from your Hard Drive was very important, then it can land you in big trouble.

Recoverit (IS) Tool is the solution to your problem. You can recover all of your lost data from the formatted Toshiba Drive with the help of Recoverit (IS) Tool. You can use Recoverit (IS) tool to recover all kinds of data that is lost during formatting of your Toshiba Drive. iSkysoft is one of the highest-rated and most reliable recovery tools in the market, and it is also one of the most affordable tools among all.

Recoverit (IS)

Best Features of Recoverit (IS) Tool

How Do I Format Hard Drive For Mac
  • You can recover deleted files from all kind of Drives like HDD, SSD, Floppy Disk, USB Drive, SD Card, and also from your Toshiba Hard Drive.
  • You can recover files lost from Drive due to many reasons like Malware attack, Accidental Delete, Intentional Delete, System Crash, and also from the formatted drives.
  • You can recover more than 1000 file types.
  • You can run the recovery tool on Windows and macOS as well.
  • You can recover data from PC, Mac, Android, Drives, Camera, CD, etc.
  • It allows you to recover data stored on your Drive even from a crashed window.
3,165,867 people have downloaded it

User Guide to Recover Data on Formatted Toshiba Hard Drive

Step 1 To recover deleted data from your Toshiba Drive, you need to first download the Recoverit (IS) Tool compatible with your System. Once downloaded, install it and complete the registration process. If your Toshiba Drive from which you want to recover data is an external Drive, then you will need to connect it to your System before starting the recovery process.

Step 2 Launch the Recoverit (IS) Tool and select the Drive from which you want to recover data on the Drive Selection window. If your Drive is an External Drive, then you will find it in “External Storage Devices” section. If your Drive is an Internal Drive, then you will find it in “Storage Drives” section. Select the Drive and click “Start”.

Step 3 The tool will start scanning your Toshiba Drive for all the deleted files. Meanwhile, you can Pause and Resume the scanning process at any time. Once scanned, you will see all the scanned files listed. Search for the files that you want to recover. You can also preview the files with the help of “Preview” button.

How Do I Format A Hard Drive For Mac And Pc

Step 4 Select all the files that you want to recover from your Toshiba Drive, and click on the “Recover” button. This will restore all the deleted files to the selected location on your System. You can then access all the recovered files from the location.

Conclusion:

How To Format Hard Drive For Mac

It is very important to format your Toshiba Drive for macOS. It is important for your old Hard Drives, as well as your brand-new Hard Drives. When formatted for Mac, the Toshiba Hard Drives gives their best performance. But you always need to remember that taking a backup of your Drive is equally important as formatting it for Mac. Or else, you will have to perform a recovery of your Drive using Recoverit (IS) Tool.

How Do I Format A Transcend Hard Drive For Mac

Not every USB drive can be used with a Mac out of the box, you'll need to format the drive to compatible with the MacOS extended file system. If you want to ensure full Mac compatibility on your USB drive or flash disk, just read this article. And you will find two ways which will teach you how to format a USB drive to FAT32 on Mac, including Disk Utility and Terminal command. And if you lost your important data because of formatting, you can use data recovery tool to recover data from a formatted USB drive on Mac.

What You Should Do First Before Formatting USB Drive on Mac

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The only way to be sure of the content you are formatting is to first remove the USB drive from Mac, know the title of other storage disks, insert the USB disk again and note the name of the disk. Now you are sure not to be formatting a wrong disk this way. Next, drag the USB data to a safe location for backup/recovery measures before formatting it. Then you are set to get it done!

Which File Format to Choose When Formatting USB Drive on Mac

For PCs operating on macOS High Sierra or newer version, you can select from two options of file formats: Mac OS Extended and APFS. Here is the difference, APFS format is not compatible with macOS versions older than High Sierra. Therefore, if you are sure to still insert your USB driver on older versions of macOS, then you should consider formatting as Mac OS Extended.

Also, if you are to use the USB drive as a destination for Time Machine, you should consider reformatting to Mac OS Extended as Time Machine cannot back up an APFS disk.

How to Format a USB Drive to FAT32 on Mac

As earlier stated, you need to first back up your USB drive before formatting the drive as you may not be able to recover the contents again. Now, you can follow the steps to be highlighted below to get it successfully formatted.

Hard

1Format a USB Drive to FAT32 in Mac OS with Disk Utility

How Do I Format Hard Drive For Macs

Step 1. Insert the USB to be formatted to a Mac PC.

Step 2. Navigate to Applications > Utilities, and click it twice to open it.

Step 3. Select the drive you want to format and click on Erase.

Step 4. Rename the USB drive (optional), and choose the MS-DOS(FAT) for format.

Step 5. Then select Master Boot Record for scheme, hit Erase.

Step 6. Once the process is done, you are ready to reuse the drive with FAT32 file system to save data again.

2Convert/Format USB Drive to FAT32

Step 1. Connect the USB drive to your Mac PC.

Step 2. Click on cmd + space to run spotlight, input terminal then tap Enter key.

Step 3. Type diskutil list to find the location of your UB drive (eg: dev/disk2 is the USB drive in the below picture).

Step 4. Type sudo diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 MBRFormat /dev/disk2.

  • sudo gives you user right.

  • Diskutil calls disk utility program.

  • eraseDisk commands to format.

  • FAT32 sets the file system.

  • MBRFormat tells disk utility to format with a Master Boot Record.

  • /dev/disk2 is the location of the USB drive.

After the process completes, type diskutil list in command once more to check if the USB drive has been formatted successfully.

If succeeded, you can use the USB drive with FAT32 file system to store data again.

How to Recover Lost Data after Formatting a USB Drive to FAT32 on Mac

Users perhaps format a USB drive by mistake. Only after formatting it, they would realize that they had lost important data. If you don' t have a backup for data, then you can recover lost data from formatted USB drive on Mac with this trusted data recovery software - iMyFone AnyRecover. You can now recover all kinds of data from formatted USB drive on Mac with only 3 simple steps.

Features of iMyFone AnyRecover:

- Your Comprehensive Mac Data Recovery Solution

How Do I Format Hard Drive For Mac

You can get back your lost photos, videos, documents, compressed files, and numerous kinds of data from formatted USB drive easily.

Retrieve data from MacBook, any internal or external storage media: memory card, USB drive, virtual disk, HDD, SSD, and so on.

Resolve all data loss situations: formatted drive, trash emptied, partition lost, accidental deletion, virus attack, hardware failure and other cases.

It allows you to preview scanned files before recovery and select what you want to restore.

It supports data recovery on all types of USB drives. It also supports file formats like NTFS, HFS, FAT, exFAT, etc.

Follow the next steps to recover data after formatting USB flash drive on mac:

Step 1: Make sure you have connected your USB drive to your Mac successfully. Launch AnyRecover software on your system and select the formatted USB drive you are trying to recover from. And press the “Start” button to start the scanning.

Step 2: The software will automatically begin the scanning process. This can help you recover your lost data from your formatted USB drive.

Step 3: Immediately after the scanning process is complete, the software will list all the files in their respective file formats and folders. Tick on and confirm what you are going to recover, then click on “Recover” button.

Conclusion

USB storage devices have become very popular these days because they are a very convenient way to store and transfer data. However, there could be times when you formatted disk, accidentally deleted files, your storage device could become damaged, or you could end up with data corruption due to operating system failures, viruses, software malfunctions or other problems that cause damage to your data stored on your USB storage device. If it is the case, do not panic, Just download iMyFone AnyRecover to get your lost data back quickly and easily.





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