Partition External Hard Drive For Windows And Mac

Video editors will often find that they need to share files between a PC and a Mac. Use these steps to format external hard drives for both operating systems. Top Image via As a video editor or, you will often need to share files with others. Eventually you will find out that you may not be working on the same operating system (OS) as others.

Besides, you can format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows by converting HFS+ to FAT32 or exFAT without losing any data. Step 1: Backup Data in HFS+ Partition on Mac. Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on Mac. Of course, if. How to share an external hard drive between Mac and Windows Get the best of both worlds by sharing your data on MacOS and Windows. Partition the drive on Windows 10.

If you work solely on a Mac, but need to send files to someone working on a PC, your external hard drive needs to be set up for both operating systems. Let’s take a look at the different types of formats, and which are best for video production. Formatting the Hard Drive A vast majority of video production will be done on a Mac or Windows operating system, so we aren’t going to cover Linux. Hard drives set up for use on Windows machines only will often use, while Macs will use.

That said, if you are using both a PC and Mac in the workflow, you’ll need to use a different format. Image from You may be using only Macs or PCs in your own office, but you will also need to take into account what type of machines your client is using. If you need to send them RAW files or an edited sequence, you will need to make sure the external hard drive is set up for both operating systems. To do this, you will need to use either or formats. This will allow you to use the hard drive on both a Mac and PC. FAT32 is often used among general users, but FAT32 has limitations that can affect filmmakers. FAT32 has a maximum file size of 4 GB per file.

The limitation affects both Mac and PC users. A single high resolution file can easily go over 4 GB, so Fat32 may not the best format. The best format for video production is exFAT. The maximum individual file size for exFAT is 16 EB. 1 EB, or exabyte, is 1 billion GB. That said, if you are using smaller file sizes — FAT32 can suffice. Format Hard Drive (Mac) 1.

Connect the external hard drive to the computer. Click Go on the top tool bar, and select Utilities. Open Disk Utility. Select the external hard drive on the left-hand side. Click the Partition tab. Change the Partition Layout from Current to 1 Partition. Click Options, Select Master Boot Record, and click OK.

Name the hard drive with a name of your choice. Click the Format drop-down menu. Select exFat (or MS-DOS FAT for a FAT32 format). Hit Apply, then click on Partition. Formatting Hard Drive (Windows) Image from 1.

Right-Click on the Windows icon in the lower left-hand corner. Select Disk Management. Right-Click on the external hard drive in the Volume tab. Click Format. Name the hard drive. Select exFAT (or FAT for FAT32). Naming and Labelling Hard Drives If you will be using multiple external hard drives on a project, you’ll want to make sure to keep them organized.

This includes the way you name the drive and how you label it. One of my personal tricks is naming all drives after an actor. For instance, one project had several external drives, all of which were named after different characters — Mugatu, Megamind, Lord Business, and Ron Burgundy. Another project used characters — Forrest and Woody.

Remember that external drives should be used temporarily — and all footage should be backed up elsewhere. To make sure everything is copied correctly. There are plenty of ways you can label your drives. You can simply use some masking tape or gaff tape, and then write the name of the drive. You can also use, which are the awesome stickers featured above.

You easily put them on your external drive to keep track of them. If you are a parent, like myself, you can also use any stickers you have lying around the house.

I recently had Kermit the Frog and Optimus Prime hard drives. No matter how you label your hard drives, just make sure you keep track of them. You never know when you will need that footage from a three-year-old project. Got any hard drive organizational tips to share with the community?

Let us know in the comments below!

Back Up the Drive’s Data First First, back up the data on the Mac-formatted drive if you have anything important on it. This process won’t actually convert the file system.

Instead, we’ll just be wiping the drive and starting over from scratch. Any files on the drive will be erased.

If you have a Mac lying around, you can plug the drive into a Mac and back up the files. If you only have Windows systems available, you can use to copy files from the drive onto your Windows system drive or another drive. HFSExplorer unfortunately requires you install Java to use it, but it’s the only free option here. You’ll probably want to.

Erase the Mac Partitions, Including the EFI System Partition RELATED: First, open the. Press Windows Key + R to open the Run dialog, type diskmgmt.msc into the box, and press Enter to open it. This tool allows you to manage the partitions on drives connected to your computer — internal ones or external ones connected via USB. Locate the Mac drive in the list of disks. 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. If you’re lucky, you can just right-click each partition on the Mac drive and select Delete Volume to remove the partitions.

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. The Mac drive may have an “EFI System Partition” on it. This partition is marked as protected, so you can’t just right-click and delete it — the delete option will be disabled.

To erase this partition, we’ll have to wipe the entire disk. This process erases everything on the disk, including its files and all its partitions. First, note the number of the disk in the disk management window. For example, in the screenshot below, the Mac-formatted drive is Disk 2.

Next, open a Command Prompt window as administrator. To do this on Windows 8 or Windows 7, press the Windows key once, type cmd, and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter. Type diskpart into the Command Prompt window and press Enter. Type list disk at the DISKPART prompt and press Enter to view a list of disks connected to your computer. Identify the number of your Mac disk in the list. It should be the same as the number of the disk in the Disk Management window. Be sure to double-check this — you could accidentally wipe the wrong drive if you select the wrong disk here.

Docker for mac needs privileged access. Type select disk # and press Enter to select the Mac disk, replacing # with the number of the Mac disk. For example, here we’d type select disk 2.

Finally, type clean and press Enter. This command erases the entire selected disk, including all its files and partitions — whether they’re protected or not.

You’ll have an empty, uninitialized disk after you do this. Close the Command Prompt window when you see a message saying “DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.” Create an NTFS or FAT32 Partition You can now open the Disk Management window again. If you’ve left it open, you may have to click Action Rescan Disks to update the data. Locate the Mac disk in the list. It will be completely empty and display a message saying “Not Initialized.” Right-click it and select Initialize Disk.

Select the and click OK to create a partition table for the disk. Right-click in the unallocated space on the initialized disk and select New Simple Volume. Use the wizard to create a partition with the. The drive will now be formatted for use by Windows systems. There will be no space wasted by protected Mac partitions. Some Mac functions require an HFS+ formatted drive. For example, can only back up to HFS+ formatted drives.

Image Credit.