Formatting external hard drive (from mac to windows)

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Jade Hau

Reputable
Apr 9, 2015
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Hi

I got an external hard drive (SP Armor A65M) its for Mac. I use Windows so it doesnt work on my computer. But I've heard you can format it to make it wok on Windows. How do I do that?
And will formating the hard drive affect its preformanc, space capasity or in any other negative way?
 
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SuperSoph_WD
Hey there, Jade Hau!

It's pretty easy to perform the reformatting, however, you should backup the data from the external somewhere else beforehand. Re-formatting will wipe the data, so make sure you get it somewhere safe.
Since the external is for Mac, I guess the file system is HFS+ and it needs to be in FAT32 in order to be able to use the external on both Mac and Windows. The formatting won't affect the drive negatively, don't worry.
Here's a tutorial from our KB that explains how to format your external to FAT32: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=U2mpma

Keep me posted! Hope that helped! :)
SuperSoph_WD
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious
Jul 30, 2014
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Hey there, Jade Hau!

It's pretty easy to perform the reformatting, however, you should backup the data from the external somewhere else beforehand. Re-formatting will wipe the data, so make sure you get it somewhere safe.
Since the external is for Mac, I guess the file system is HFS+ and it needs to be in FAT32 in order to be able to use the external on both Mac and Windows. The formatting won't affect the drive negatively, don't worry.
Here's a tutorial from our KB that explains how to format your external to FAT32: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=U2mpma

Keep me posted! Hope that helped! :)
SuperSoph_WD
 
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