Free Fat32 Format Tool For Mac
Format drive via free partition formatting tool AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is great partition formatting freeware, which offers you more options of file system for you to choose. It allows you to format partition to exFAT, FAT32, NTFS, Ext2 and Ext3 in external hard drive, internal hard drive, USB flash drive and SD card. First, let us look on how to format FAT32 drive on Mac (macOS Sierra). You could be wondering what FAT32 is. You could be wondering what FAT32 is. It is a file system in Windows 95, 98, and windows Millennium Edition.
Often switch between a Mac and PC? Want to use one USB flash storage device for both? The thing is that by default, these platforms use different file systems – discs are formatted differently. Windows uses NTFS, and Mac OS uses HFS, these file systems are not compatible with each other. However there is a simple solution – you can format the drive to FAT32 or exFAT that performs better than FAT32. In the resulut, your external hard drive will work just fine with Mac and Windows.
- WD Quick Formatter, also known as WD Advanced Format Drivers (AFDs), is an external hard drive format utility for Windows and Mac, developed by Western Digital Technologies, Inc. External drive like WD Elements, My Book and My Passport can be formatted to FAT32 via this tool.
- HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool is one of the best free USB flash drive formatter software for Windows. It comes with two types of file format systems, namely, FAT32 and NTFS. In addition, Quick Format and Enable Compression options are also available to perform formatting on USB flash drive.
- Fat32 format tool free download - MiniAide Fat32 Formatter, USB Flash Drive Format Tool, Macrorit NTFS to FAT32 Converter, and many more programs. Best Video Software for the Mac How To Run.
You can format your external hard drive from either the PC or Mac. Just keep in mind if you want to use your drive also for OS X’s Time Machine backups, we advise you to format your drive through Mac because there is an additional step to make drive compatible with “Time Machine Backups”. And you can only do this with exFAT as with FAT32 Mac OS X’s Time Machine backup won’t work.
FAT32 or exFAT?
You can format your external hard drive in both – exFAT and FAT32. They both will work just fine. Mac and PC can read and write on both. However, each of these filesystems has their own pros and cons. FAT32 has a maximum 4GB file size limit, but exFAT can work with files as large as 16EB, that’s more than you will ever need. If you have to work with large video clips, games or any other kind of massive files, FAT32 may not be the best choice. Many still choose FAT32 over exFAT despite its slower performance, as it’s also compatible with Linux Os and is supported on many gaming consoles.
Once you have done with formatting, your external hard drive will be able to write and read files from both a PC and Mac. The resulting FAT32 file system will be compatible with all versions of Mac OS X, and Windows including Windows 10 back to 95. This is one of the most widely recognized file system formats.
- FAT32 – a file system normally used on USB disks
- exFAT – a newer file system optimized for flash devices and has improved performance overFAT32
Why I can’t use NTFS on Mac?
The default file system for Windows is NTFS (New Technology File System). Macs that run Snow Leopard or Lion can read data from drives that are formatted as NTFS. However, they can’t write. To make your Mac compatible writing on NTFS you have to get and install a third-party driver. So in the end, it’s possible to make your NTFS external hard drive compatible with Mac. But we advise to just format it to “FAT” file system as it’s less time consuming and easier.
Windows 7 can’t read nor write files to external drives that are formatted as HFS. To do so you also have to install third-party software like Paragon HFS+ for Windows.
How to format an External Drive in Windows
1)Connect the drive to your Windows PC.
2) Open Disk Management.
3) Right click on unallocated or any other disk partition and select “New Simple Volume”
4) Choose your desired size
5) Assign your external hard drive with any letter.
6) Choose exFAT as the file system.
7) Follow the instructions and at the end click “Finish“
How to Format an External Drive in OS X
1) Connect your external hard drive to the Mac.
2)Open Disk Utility. You can do this quickly by pressing CMD and the spacebar at the same time. Then type in “Disk Utility”.
3) Select the drive you want to format.
4) Click the Partition tab.
6)Change the Partition Layout from Current to 1 Partition.
7) Click Options, SelectMaster Boot Record, and click OK.
8)Name the hard drive with a name of your choice.
9)Click the Format drop-down menu.
10) Select exFAT or MS-DOS FAT(FAT32).
11) At last press Apply, then click onPartition.
Hello.
WD My Book would be best for desktop, Seagate Backup Plus Slim would be one of the best portable hard drives. Both are all-around decent drives and will do fine for any backup, pictures included.
As for cross-platform encryption, if you intend to use the same drive on both Mac and Windows, the best option would be using a cross-platform compatible encryption tool, like VeraCrypt, while formatting the drive in exFAT to avoid compatibility issues. This is because Windows won’t recognize Mac’s native encryption and vice versa. VeraCrypt is well-renowned, so it should function well without any problems, just be prepared to learn how to use the tool. Try testing this setup with just a couple files before you perform entire backups.
Fat32 Formatting Tool
Hard Drive Format for Mac and PC
Both Mac OS X and Windows allow users to format their hard drives using built-in utilities. Even though most people associate formatting with system installation, there are many other reasons why you might want to format your hard drive.
When you purchase a brand-new hard drive, there’s no guarantee that it will be pre-formatted from the factory, nor is there any guarantee that it will come with the right file system. Optimization is another good reason for hard drive formatting. Data fragmentation remains an issue even in the era of mobile devices, and in some cases formatting is the fastest way how to solve it. Of course, you may also just want to quickly delete the content of an entire hard drive.
Regardless of why you want to format your hard drive, there are some considerations to be made before you begin. First and foremost, you need to decide which file system to use. Mac OS X uses the HFS Plus file system, while Windows uses the NTFS file system. Both Mac OS X and Windows also support the FAT32 file system, but we don’t recommend it for hard drives. Because FAT32 supports only up to 4 GB large files, it should be used only with flash drives. If you need to format external hard drive Mac or Windows, you may also consider the exFAT files system. Developed by Microsoft, this modern file system is optimized for situations where the NTFS file system is not a feasible solution, and the file size limit of the standard FAT32 file system is unacceptable.
How to Format a Hard Drive for Mac
Mac OS X users have at their disposal a handy tool called Disk Utility. With it, it’s possible to easily format and storage device with just a few clicks. You can launch it from the App list or use Spotlight. The main window of the utility contains a list of storage devices, storage device details, and formatting options.
Select your storage device, choose your desire file system, specify the name, and click on the Erase button. Click on the Erase button again to confirm your decision and wait for the process to end.
How to Format a Hard Drive for Windows
To format a hard drive for Windows, open the File Explorer and click on This PC. If the hard drive you want to format is connected to your PC, it should be there. Right-click on it and select the Format option from the context menu. Keep in mind that you can only format storage devices that are currently not in use. Windows will present you with a formatting window where you can specify various formatting parameters. After you confirm your selection, it should take just a few moments for the formatting process to finish.
Recover Data from a Formatted Hard Drive
Download Fat32 Format Tool
Realizing that you’ve forgot to back up a critically important file from a newly formatted hard drive feels horrible. Without a capable data recovery tool, there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s why countless people from around the world have turned to Disk Drill, selecting it as their data recovery tool of choice.