Considering using Diskpart to format partition is a danger that one wrong command may cause irrevocable damage, here we highly recommend you to use a simple third-party software. If so, you need to use Diskpart to format partition or try to use a third party software to help you. However, you can find that there is no exFAT option and the only option under the window of Format > File system is NTFS(Default). Sometimes, you may want to try Format directly to format your external hard drive partition to exFAT for Mac and Windows. When you move to the Format Partition window, choose exFAT under File system drop-down menu. Then you will get into the New Simple Volume Wizard, follow the hints to specify volume size -> assign drive letter and path. Choose the external hard drive’s partition or the unallocated space you want to format, select New Simple Volume. In Disk Management, you’ll see your external hard drive as partition or unallocated space. Open the Disk Management tool by right-clicking This PC -> Manage -> Disk Management. Connect your external hard drive to your Windows 10 PC. Format external hard drive with Windows built-in tool Well then, how to format an external hard drive to exFAT with Windows PC? Here we take an example of formatting external hard drive to exFAT in a Windows 10 PC. Thus, you’d better use the Windows machine to format your external hard drive. However, if you want to use the Mac to format your external hard drive to exFAT, you’ll face the problem that the external hard drive may not be compatible with the Windows PC. You can format the drive from either the Mac or the Windows machine. How to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC? Thus, many users would like to use exFAT instead of FAT32 to make an external hard drive for mac and windows interchangeable.

However, FAT32 has a maximum 4GB file size limit whereas exFAT can work with files as large as 16EB. So, if you want to use an external hard drive on both Windows and Mac, you need to format it to a filesystem that is compatible with Windows PC and Mac.īoth FAT32 and exFAT can be used on Windows PC and Mac.

Windows PC and Mac use different filesystems. Need to format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows

Best disk format for mac and pc