How to Format External Hard Drive for Mac & Windows (MS-Dos or ExFat?)

If you want to transfer files from a Mac to Windows PC and vice versa using an external portable hard drive then you have to have the external drive formatted in a file system both OS's can read and write too. Your choice is ms-dos (aka fat32) or exfat and I go over the difference in the video.

Note: most external drives you buy will automatically be formatted in NTFS which is a Windows file system. Macs can only read but not write to a ntfs file system. So if you want your external hard drive to be backward compatible with both OS's then you need to reformat it with fat32 or exfat.

Please like, sub, share if you find this video helpful! Thank you.

[Gunner]

Just a tip for your videos. Turn off that clicking sound

[MrRavingFace]

Hey mate, just wanted to say this helped me massively....4 years on from your upload date

[TheHippieWithinUs]

Love it straight to the point . Not a 20 min video of unnecessary noise 🎉❤

[Mr.Sandoval-CCHS]

7 years since you made this tutorial and I still return to watch it. Thanks! Your education is far appreciated.

[beaker]

Those mouse clicks at 150dB are insane. Are all Mac mouses louder than gunshots? Jeez...

[MoshiMoshiMea]

This was so helpful! I bought an external hard drive and had no idea that it had to be formatted. I really appreciate your walk-through!

[ImCarpet]

Im using an old external hard drive to put wii games on for my homebrewed wii. I didn’t think it would work but thanks to this video I got it working. Thank you bro! Super easy guide to follow.

[ApexHumanity]

This is an awesome tutorial! Short, sweet, and to the point! Great job, bro!

[SeanKobiSandoval]

I have been coming back to this exact video for years... thank you for your civil service, my good sir.

[brockbaker]

Thank you! This saved me a lot of frustration.

[Mikey]

WOW - I am impressed with that click sound. Crazy but good to get that confirmation that you have clicked the mouse button

[patfernandes]

Thank you needed to know how to do this on a Mac (as opposed to PC) but worth mentioning re-formatting disk will actually erase anything currently on it so back that data up else where before you start.

[benjamin.kelley]

I edit on a PC, and a company gave me a hard drive formatted as APFS so I couldn't do anything for the videos I needed to make for them. This saved me. Thanks man!

[ChrisSche]

DUUUDE!!! Thank you! I was looking for a solution for over 4 hours online and there was none to be found since I was forced to work remotely on a windows laptop. I should have checked youtube first. You are a rockstar!

[TheReelRahim]

Tq for keeping it short and clear enuf for the layman and professionals alike. I do video projects on a mac and often send footages to a teammate on Windows. Having a HDD that works for both platforms makes for less worry on corruption issues. Been watching and re-watching this vid few times now over the years, havent had any drive issues. Thanks again for the help!

[isabelherrera]

Thanks for the video. It was straight to the point and very informative. The fact that you explained the difference between the two types of formatting was something new for me.

[cultivatelife]

You know exactly why we're here and you impeccably delivered it.

[myfavoritegroomer]

this really helped me thank you so much! I kind of liked the mouse clicking sound, to each their own :)

[CaptainSoftboy]

Its been over a year since I formatted a hard drive so I appreciate how easy this was so much X'D thank you for sharing!!!

[darrinjd]

Great video but dam your mouse click louder than my glock?