Mac Hdd On Pc

If you need to expand your storage space with an external hard drive and you use both Mac and PC, you'll likely run into a few obstacles. Hard drives advertised as being compatible with Windows.

For a Windows computer to be able to read a hard drive, it needs to have a file system format compatible with Windows. File systems compatible with Windows include FAT32 and NTFS.

Read A Mac Hdd On Pc

1. Disk Utility is the software on your Mac that will format your external hard drive for Mac and PC. You can find Disk Utility by clicking on the Application folder. Application Folder in Dock Then click on the Utilities folder inside the Application folder.
2. The HDD is the most common type of hard drive to be found in a Mac computer. Its many moving parts are also more prone to failure. It's built with a head attached to an arm that reads/writes onto a stack of spinning discs using magnetism.

Why not?

A hard drive formatted for use in a Mac has either an HFS or HFS+ file system. For this reason, a Mac-formatted hard drive is not directly compatible, nor readable by a Windows computer. The HFS and HFS+ file systems are not readable by Windows.

What are my options?

Format Mac Drive On Pc

Using a third-party application, it may be possible for a Windows computer to read a Mac-formatted hard drive. A few of the popular applications used by Windows to read a Mac hard drive are listed below.

• HFSExplorer - Free-to-use program and requires Java to be installed on the Windows computer. It allows for read-only access to files on the Mac hard drive. Updating or deleting files on the Mac hard drive from the Windows PC is not possible.
• MacDrive - Available as a 5-day free trial and can be purchased for $49.99, MacDrive allows users to view, update, and delete files on the Mac hard drive. MacDrive can integrate with Windows Explorer for easier browsing of the hard drive's files.
• Paragon HFS+ for Windows - This program is available as a 10-day free trial and can be purchased for $19.95. Like MacDrive, users can view, update, and delete files on the Mac hard drive. It also integrates with Windows Explorer.

View Mac Hard Drive On Pc