hey guys, i have a 20 GB FireLite HD that i formatted on my Mac yesterday (using Disk Utilities). now it won't read when i plug it into a Windows machine. the lab techs at my school said once it's formatted on a Mac, it can never work on a PC again, but i swear i've done this before. can anybody help me out?
External HD issues
- Thread starter sly25
- Start date
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- Oct 10, 2004
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- Your Mac's Specs
- 3.4 Ghz i7 MacBook Pro (2015), iPad Pro (2014), iPhone Xs Max. Apple TV 4K
You need to format it for Windows (FAT-32) not for Mac (HFS+). You can do this on your Mac. The Lab techs are wrong.
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2004
- Messages
- 10,345
- Reaction score
- 597
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Margaritaville
- Your Mac's Specs
- 3.4 Ghz i7 MacBook Pro (2015), iPad Pro (2014), iPhone Xs Max. Apple TV 4K
When you open disc utility, select the drive you want to format. There will two icons for the drive, one that shows the drive and one below it that shows the partition. You want to select the disc (upper) icon, then click the ERASE Tab, then select MS-DOS from the Volume Format drop down menu. Then format. This will format the disc as FAT-32.
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