Right Click to Eject Format External Hard Drive For Mac Frequently Asked Questions 1. And it’s all ready for you to use.Īnd when you’re ready to pack your drive away be sure to Eject your drive first. You’ll see it with the name you’ve given it. Your drive will then show up on your Mac’s desktop.
But of course your external hard drive is way bigger. When formatted you can use your drive just as you would a USB stick. And once done your external drive is ready for you to use. Your Mac will take a few minutes to format a hard drive. The red arrows in the picture show you where you can find the format and scheme list of options. Then format again.ĪPFS will come up as an option the second time round.īut still pick GUID Partition Map for your Mac.
Pick Mac OS Extended (Journaled) the first time you format. Can’t see APFS (Apple File System) as an option? Or you’ll have all sorts of odd problems using your drive later on your Mac. Your Mac needs the GUID Partition Map scheme. Pick ExFAT if you want your drive read and writeable by both Mac and Windows.Īll the above formats allow you to copy and paste from your Mac to your drive.ĭrag and drop your files to your external hard drive.īut only APFS or Mac OS extended (Journaled) can you use for your Mac’s Time Machine backup. But you can format your hard drive as APFS if you want.
You can actually convert the old internal hard drive to external and use it for storing files, backing up data, and keeping videos/games that can be used on your TV/PS4.Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is the format that’s the most compatible with newer and older Macs. At this time, you should look for a 3.5” enclosure that gives support to PATA/IDE. If the hard drive was used in a desktop originally, it’s possible that it has a PATA interface and 3.5 inch size.
Therefore, you need a 2.5” SATA enclosure. If the hard drive is taken out from a laptop, it’s possible that the interface is SATA (there are also a small number of laptop hard drives equipped with an IDE interface) and the size is 2.5 inch.The interface and size of the enclosure to buy must match that of your hard drive. When buying an enclosure for converting HDD to USB, you should take 2 things into consideration: interface and size. What to Consider When Buying an Enclosure Besides, they can purchase a PATA/SATA to USB adapter and then use it to connect the internal HDD directly to PC via USB port. Certainly, yes, they can make their own external HDD enclosure from card. Some users are asking whether they can convert an internal hard drive to external HDD without enclosure. If any files get lost unexpectedly, you should retrieve data from hard drive by following this:Ĭan You Convert Internal HDD to External without Enclosure If the drive is working file, you should follow the steps that will be explained in the following content. Then, determine whether the old drive is ok.
What you should do before converting hard drive is to transfer data from hard drive or use software from MiniTool to backup data.
You need to prepare an external hard drive enclosure before changing internal hard drive to USB it works as the SATA-to-USB converter to allow you to turn an internal SATA hard drive into an external USB drive. HDD to USB: A Better Way to Dispose Old Drive It only takes surprisingly little effort for you to convert internal hard drive to external USB. Making old HDD to USB is a more economical and environmentally friendly choice. Please don’t throw the old drive away it is still useful. Either way, your old hard drive will be put aside. Some people also choose to buy a new computer for a better experience. Many users’ first reaction to a slow and old computer is replacing the hard drive with a new one or with a SSD.
This post will show you how to convert internal hard drive to external USB in detail. If you’re fed up with the slow speed of your computer (desktop or laptop), what are you going to do with this old hard drive? In fact, turning HDD to USB is a better choice than throwing away the old hard drive it’s more economical and environmentally friendly.