It should only take a minute or two for the drive to be erased and reformatted. Now your drive is ready for OS X. Install OS X. There are two ways you can install OS X on to your external hard disk: by reinstalling OS X from the OS X Utilities repair screen or by downloading OS X.
If you recently purchased an external hard drive or portable SSD for your Mac, you probably noticed that Mac OS X doesn’t allow you to write data on to the drive. This is because the drive has been initialized for Windows NT File system, NTFS for short, and NTFS is primarily for PC use. Mac computers support a different file system. Nonetheless, there’s a way you can format your external drive for a Mac compatible file system.
Before you dive into learning how to format your external drive, there’s an important factor you need to take into account. If your external drive has many useful files on it, you should ensure that you copy or transfer these files elsewhere. This is because when you begin the process of formatting your drive, all of your data will be deleted.
Mac Os Format External Drive
Although you can use a recovery program, such a Data Rescue, in order to recover your files, it will be quite a hassle, and near impossible. It’s better to take precautions beforehand, and back up your files to another safe location. Once you’ve backed up your important files and data elsewhere, follow the instructions below in order to format your external drive.
Format External Drive to Work with Mac OS X
In order to format your external drive, you’ll need to use Disk Utility. Disk Utility comes built-in with your Mac, and is used to erase, format, or manage internal and external storage devices. Disk Utility is also used in order to manage volumes, and organize data into partitions. Overall, this is a very useful tool, that will aid you greatly in the process of formatting your external drive. In order to get started and use Disk Utility to format your external drive, follow the simple instructions below.
1. Launch Disk Utility. You can use Spotlight to do this, by clicking on the magnifying glass icon in the top right corner of your screen. Type in Disk Utility in the search bar, and press the enter/return key.
2. In the left windowpane, you’ll see a list of the available drives. Please select the drive you would like to format. If you don’t see your drive available, ensure that it’s properly connected to your Mac.
3. Click on the Erase tab.
4. A window will now pop-up asking which file system you would like to use, in order to format your external drive. The default option is the Windows NT File system. Select Mac OS Extended (Journaled), instead.
If you prefer to use your external drive for both Mac and Windows, you can choose ExFAT, instead. You’ll also have the option to rename your external drive, if you wish to do so. Please be patient as the erasing process carries out. This may take some time depending on how much information needs to be erased.
After the process has completed, you can check to see if it was successful. Follow the instructions below, in order to see if your drive was properly formatted.
1. Right-click on the icon for your external drive.
Format External Drive Mac Os X
2. Click on Get Info.
3. Next to Format, it should say Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
That’s all it takes. You’ve formatted your external drive to be compatible with Mac OS X, and have confirmed that the formatting process was successful. You can now edit, read, and write files, as you wish.
Partition External Hard Drive on Mac OS X
You should create multiple partitions on your external hard drive, in order to have enhanced file organization. This is very easy to carry out, and only requires a few moments of your time. In order to get started and partition your external hard drive, follow the simple instructions below.
1. Launch Disk Utility. You can use Spotlight to do this, by clicking on the magnifying glass icon in the top right corner of your screen. Type in Disk Utility in the search bar, and press the enter/return key.
2. In the left windowpane, you’ll see a list of the available drives. Please select the drive you would like to format. If you don’t see your drive available, ensure that it’s properly connected to your Mac.
3. Click on the Partition tab.
4. A window will open with a blue circle and the name of your external drive. Click on the + button in order to add a partition to your external drive.
5. Feel free to allocate the desired volume to each partition that you create. You can easily do this by clicking on the small white circle and dragging it around, as you wish.
6. Feel free to rename each partition, as you wish, and select a file system for it.
7. Click on Partition in order to confirm you’d like to carry out the partition.
Please be patient as the process to partition your external drive is carried out. Once the process has completed, you’ll see a Operation successful message. Click on Done when you see this message. That’s all it takes. You’ve now partitioned your external drive. Thanks to Disk Utility, the process was very easy to carry out, and only required a few moments of your time.
If you’re worried the partition didn’t carry out successfully, there’s an easy way to confirm. All you need to do is navigate to your Mac OS Desktop. On your Desktop, you should now see various icons, representing the partitions that you created, using the instructions above. Although you may think there’s no need to create partitions for your external drive, you’ll soon learn that this is a very neat tool that will allow you to have enhanced file organization.
You can create different partitions for different needs. For example, you can have a backup partition, a personal use partition, a work partition, and other such partitions of the like. This will increase your productivity, as all of your important files and data will be properly organized, and easy to see.
These advanced steps are primarily for system administrators and others who are familiar with the command line. You don't need a bootable installer to upgrade macOS or reinstall macOS, but it can be useful when you want to install on multiple computers without downloading the installer each time.
Download macOS
Find the appropriate download link in the upgrade instructions for each macOS version:
macOS Catalina, macOS Mojave, ormacOS High Sierra
Installers for each of these macOS versions download directly to your Applications folder as an app named Install macOS Catalina, Install macOS Mojave, or Install macOS High Sierra. If the installer opens after downloading, quit it without continuing installation. Important: To get the correct installer, download from a Mac that is using macOS Sierra 10.12.5 or later, or El Capitan 10.11.6. Enterprise administrators, please download from Apple, not a locally hosted software-update server.
OS X El Capitan
El Capitan downloads as a disk image. On a Mac that is compatible with El Capitan, open the disk image and run the installer within, named InstallMacOSX.pkg. It installs an app named Install OS X El Capitan into your Applications folder. You will create the bootable installer from this app, not from the disk image or .pkg installer.
Format Hard Drive For Mac
Use the 'createinstallmedia' command in Terminal
- Connect the USB flash drive or other volume that you're using for the bootable installer. Make sure that it has at least 12GB of available storage and is formatted as Mac OS Extended.
- Open Terminal, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
- Type or paste one of the following commands in Terminal. These assume that the installer is still in your Applications folder, and MyVolume is the name of the USB flash drive or other volume you're using. If it has a different name, replace
MyVolumein these commands with the name of your volume.
Catalina:*
Mojave:*
High Sierra:*
El Capitan: - Press Return after typing the command.
- When prompted, type your administrator password and press Return again. Terminal doesn't show any characters as you type your password.
- When prompted, type
Yto confirm that you want to erase the volume, then press Return. Terminal shows the progress as the bootable installer is created. - When Terminal says that it's done, the volume will have the same name as the installer you downloaded, such as Install macOS Catalina. You can now quit Terminal and eject the volume.
* If your Mac is using macOS Sierra or earlier, include the --applicationpath argument, similar to the way this argument is used in the command for El Capitan.
Use the bootable installer
After creating the bootable installer, follow these steps to use it:
- Plug the bootable installer into a compatible Mac.
- Use Startup Manager or Startup Disk preferences to select the bootable installer as the startup disk, then start up from it. Your Mac will start up to macOS Recovery.
Learn about selecting a startup disk, including what to do if your Mac doesn't start up from it. - Choose your language, if prompted.
- A bootable installer doesn't download macOS from the Internet, but it does require the Internet to get information specific to your Mac model, such as firmware updates. If you need to connect to a Wi-Fi network, use the Wi-Fi menu in the menu bar.
- Select Install macOS (or Install OS X) from the Utilities window, then click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions.
Learn more
For more information about the createinstallmedia command and the arguments that you can use with it, make sure that the macOS installer is in your Applications folder, then enter this path in Terminal:
Catalina:
Mojave:
High Sierra:
El Capitan: