Please connect the external hard disk in advance and make sure it’s appeared on Mac. Then, select the disk that you want to format from the left sidebar. After that, you should click on the Erase button in the right pane. Give the disk a Name (the maximum length is 11 characters). Please go to Utilities → Disk Utility. Then, select the external hard drive and click ' Partition ' tab on the top. Now, find the FAT32 partition and format it to OS X Extended (Journaled), which is the desired HFS+. Finally, click ' Apply ' button to make all changes performed. Hey everyone, how's it going? In this one were looking at how to partition a hard drive within Windows 10 using a utility called Minitool Partition Wizard. If so, there is an alternative way for you, which is to format a Read-only USB Drive, SD Card, Pen Drive, Floppy Disk, etc. To a proper file system with EaseUS.Many storage devices such as USB drives, pen drive, floppy disk, SD card, and external hard disks are preformatted with a certain file system, which may not be compatible with a Windows computer or a Mac, so you can only read it other.
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Mac computers, whether you have an iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or another Mac device, all have a finite amount of space. How you use it depends how quickly, or not, that space fills up and whether you need to add more space — either internally (such as upgrading to an SSD), or connecting to one or more external hard drives.
One thing you may not know is that the Mac boot drive is already partitioned. In all fairly recent models, the boot drive contains a secret partition that includes the macOS Recovery System, some essential Mac first aid tools and an installer, should, for any reason, your macOS fail to install or reboot.
Before we go into how to partition a Mac hard drive or SSD, let’s consider the benefits, and what you would need to do before partitioning a hard drive.
Benefits of making a partition in a Mac hard drive
One of the main reasons for implementing a partition is to run more than one operating system, such as macOS on one and Windows on the other. Or you can run two versions of the same OS in both sides of the partition, all from a single disk. Each disk drive, with its own volume, is found and treat separately in the Finder.
Once you know how to partition a hard drive on Mac, or how to partition an external hard drive on Mac, you can format and manage them separately, effectively giving you two computers within one. Although, if you want to use the other volume to run an earlier version of your Mac — which you can, using Time Machine, the volume for that side has to be twice as large as the space it requires.
What to do before partitioning a hard drive
Before going ahead with a partition, it’s always useful to tidy your Mac up. Most users find they have way more clutter and junk than they think. Between old folders and documents, images and videos, apps taking up space, hundreds of email attachment downloads and local iOS backups, many people find they have at least 62GB of junk they simply don't need. We recommend downloading CleanMyMac X, a powerful Mac cleaner, ideal for decluttering your Mac before creating a partition.
How to partition a hard drive or SSD on Mac
There are several ways this can be done.
1. Use Boot Camp
Boot Camp is especially useful if you want to run Windows on your Mac. With Boot Camp comes Boot Camp Assistant, a handy app for partitioning your hard drive space so that one disk drive can run and operate macOS, and the other, Windows.
Following the on-screen instructions of this Mac app, you can partition your hard drive or SSD space to ensure that Windows will run smoothly on your Mac, almost as if it was operating on a native Windows PC or other device.
However, for those who don't want to partition Mac for that purpose, you can use Disk Utility.
2. Use Disk Utility
Disk Utility is another Mac application that will repair and, as needed, partition disk drive spaces.
As a Mac partition manager, it is a useful app that sits within your Utilities folder, inside your Applications folder.
Before starting a Mac partition exercise, it’s worth fully backing-up the folder you want to copy using Carbon Copy Cloner. Another useful tool that gives you an instantly bootable copy of the drive you are going to partition, working on the assumption that if anything goes wrong during this process, you are going to lose everything that is on that hard drive. So with a backup, nothing can go wrong, and if it does, you can easily fix it.
Before partitioning:
- Clone the drive.
- Make sure the clone has worked and with your cloned drive you can boot this up from the startup menu.
- Plug the clone in and go to System Preferences > Startup Disk.
- Check the cloned drive works, and then you can partition without any worries.
Now you are ready to partition hard drive on Mac, starting with the following:
- Press Command-Shift-U or go to Utilities in the Applications folder.
- Double-click the Disk Utility application.
- In Disk Utility, select your Mac’s internal drive (or an internal SSD).
- You should see two options: First Aid or Partition.
- Click Partition.
- Click the ‘+’ below Partition Layout.
- Now a new Partition will appear, and you can change the size according to what you need.
- Give this new drive a name.
- If it hasn't worked exactly as you want, you can always click Revert to unpartition hard drive on Mac.
- Or, once you are happy with the size, click Apply. You may also be asked to click a lock symbol in the bottom left-hand corner to confirm everything.
But don't worry if you want to make changes down the road. Everything you have done is reversible, so you can change the size or repartition hard drive on Mac.
Once the partition is done (which doesn't take as long as you might imagine) you will have a completely new hard drive or internal SSD, identical to your original, except without anything in it. Upload anything you need, or use the cloned version to store everything that was in the original hard drive - which still exists - in this partitioned version.
Within Disk Utility, you have the option of increasing or decreasing the size, erasing altogether (just remember to backup anything you need first), which will restore the space lost in the partition to your primary hard drive. Always backup before making any changes to a partition.
And remember, before making a partition, clean up your Mac from all the junk it contains. The fastest and the safest way to do that is to use CleanMyMac X. Try it today to rid your system of unwanted files and enjoy improved performance.
What Does It Mean to Format a Partition
When you format a partition, hard drive, USB flash drive, memory card, or another storage device, you prepare it for data storage by deleting all the existing data on the device and setting up a new file system, like NTFS and FAT32, for the partition, disk, or removable storage device. For your information, the file system controls how data on the partition is stored and retrieved and serves the function of a bridge between your hard drive data and the Windows operating system.
When Do You Need to Format a Hard Drive Partition
Given that formatting a partition will remove data and assign a file system to prepare the chosen partition to be used by Windows, you will need to format a hard drive partition in the following situations:
- Partition a Hard Drive
When you create a partition on a disk, formatting the selected space is an automatic process of partitioning the hard drive. Why? By creating a partition, you change the chunk from unusable to usable, which indicates setting up a file system is needed. As you know now, that's what format can do. Therefore, formatting the drive is necessary while partitioning a hard disk.
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If you attempt to partition and format a hard drive, you don't need to format the hard drive separately, because creating a partition contains the process of format. Learn how to partition a hard drive here.
- Fix a RAW Partition
You may have the confusion 'What is RAW partition format' like many other users. You will be clear after reading the explanation.
Every partition in use has a file system and you can check it by right-clicking the partition and choose 'Properties'. When the file system of the partition becomes corrupted, missing, or is not recognized by the current operating system, it will show up as RAW under File Explorer or Disk Management. To Fix the RAW partition, you will need to convert RAW to NTFS, FAT32, or another Windows-compatible file system to make it usable again by formating. It's worth mentioning that you should recover data from the RAW partition first before formatting the drive.
- Erase Data on the Partition or Disk
Since format will remove all existing data on the selected partition or device, you may use it as a way to clean up the partition, disk, or storage medium. However, formatted data is recoverable with the help of professional hard drive recovery software. If you want to erase the files completely, you can securely erase the hard drive instead.
In addition to the main reason above, some users may choose to format a partition to remove a virus or malware. No matter what the cause is, you can apply the methods below to format a hard drive partition.
How Do You Format a Hard Drive Partition
Format a hard drive partition can be easily done via two ways: free EaseUS Format tool or Disk Management. You can format a hard drive/disk via one of two methods. However, given that useful features, the EaseUS Partition Master is the better partition tool that is worth trying. See the difference between free partition manager and Windows built-in tool.
Comparison Between the Free Edition EaseUS Partition Master and Disk Management
Here is a comparison between EaseUS Partition Master and Windows Disk Management which may help you quickly decide which tool to apply:
| Comparison | Disk Management | EaseUS Partition Master Free |
|---|---|---|
| Partition a Hard Drive | Yes | Yes |
| Format a Hard Drive | Yes (Format to NTFS only) | Yes (Format to FAT, FAT32, NTFS, ReFS) |
| Other Features | Initialize Disk, Convert Disk, Extend Volume, Shrink Volume | Initialize Disk, Convert Disk, Extend Volume, Shrink Volume,Clone Disks/Partitions, Wipe Data |
If you upgrade EaseUS Partition Master to the professional version, there are many more advanced features you can use: OS migration, Partition Recovery, WinPE Bootable Disk Creation, Dynamic Disk Management, etc. In a word, it not only helps to partition and format a hard drive but also works in many other situations related to disk/partition management.
Method 1. Format a Partition with EaseUS Format Tool for Free
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The free partition manager - EaseUS Partition Master enables you to format any hard drive with ease. It's a versatile disk management tool that also helps to create, resize, move, merge, and clone partitions.
The following cases may match what you need in formatting an existing partition or a chunk to several parts.
Case 1: How to format an existing partition
Step 1. Right-click the hard drive partition and choose the 'Format' option.
Step 2. In the new window, set the Partition label, File system, and Cluster size for the partition, then click 'OK'.
Step 3. You can see a warning window, click 'OK' to continue.
Step 4. Click the 'Execute Operation' button in the top-left corner, then click 'Apply' to start formatting the hard drive partition.
Case 2: How to format a new partition
If your disk has not been partitioned or formatted, then it does not appear on the file explorer. The below tutorial will teach you to initialize the partition, create a new partition, and format it.
Step 1. Open EaseUS Partition Master. Connect the hard drive or SSD to PC.
Right-click the target HDD or SSD and select 'Initialize to MBR' or 'Initialize to GPT' accordingly.
Fig 1. Initialize to MBR:
Fig 2. Initialize to GPT:
Step 2. A pending operation of initializing disk to MBR or GPT disk will be added. Execute the operation and click 'Apply'.
Then click 'Resize/Move' to create a new partition, and repeat the formatting steps in case 1.
You can almost format almost any drive on your computer or any Windows-compatible storage device using the EaseUS format tool except for C drive (the system drive). If you want to format a C drive, learn how to get it done from the article about how to format the C drive in Windows 10.
Furthermore, in some rare cases, you may encounter a situation in which storage devices like SD cards won't format. Learn how to repair it if you need to.
Method 2. Format a Hard Drive Partition with Disk Management
Disk Management is a built-in tool in Windows that can be used to manage internal/external disks. It also allows you to create and format a partition.
Format A New Partition:
Step 1. Right-click 'This PC' and choose 'Manage'.
Step 2. Go to 'Disk Management'.
Step 3. Right-click the unallocated space on your hard disk and choose 'New Simple Volume'.
Step 4. Follow the guide of the New Simple Volume Wizard.
Step 5. Enter the size of the partition you want to create or accept the maximum default size, and then select Next.
Step 6. Accept the default drive letter or choose a different one to identify the partition, and then select Next.
Step 7. In the Format Partition dialog box, do one of the following:
- If you don't want to format the volume right now, select 'Do not format this volume' and click Next.
- To format the volume with the default settings, click Next.
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Format An Existing Partition:
Step 1. Right-click 'This PC' and choose 'Manage'.
Step 2. Go to 'Disk Management'.
Step 3. Right-click the target hard drive partition and choose 'Format'.
Step 4. Set the volume label, file system and click 'OK' to start formatting the drive.
The Bottom Line
The format is a frequently used feature that is necessary when creating a partition, fixing a RAW partition, and erasing data from a drive. You can format a hard drive partition with simple steps using the EaseUS format tool or Windows Disk Management. Since format will cause data loss, you should back up the data on the select drive before the operation, either by manually copying files or using data recovery software when the partition or device is inaccessible.
People Also Ask
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1. What does it mean to format a partition?
To format a partition means to choose the selected partition on the hard drive to be set by the file system, and to delete or erase all data and setting on it. For Windows, formatting a partition is being tacked by EaseUS Partition Master and Disk Management tool.
2. Can you format partitions differently?
Yes. For the formatting tool, we recommend EaseUS Partition Master to format partition when you need to set a formatting process. And the Disk Management tool is the common solution we also mentioned.
3. What is better exFAT or NTFS?
Generally speaking, NTFS is faster in reading and writing speed. More and more devices support exFAT than NTFS. NTFS is the perfect suit for the internal drives, while exFAT is the better choice for flash drives. How to choose a file system may depend on your device type.
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4. What happens if I format a partition?
If you have the necessary data on it, the formatting partition will erase all data and you will lose it permanently. The safe method is to back up the important part and move on.