Make sure the storage device is connected to and mounted on the computer. Select Go > Utilities in the Finder menu bar. In the Utilities folder, double-click Disk Utility. Select the Seagate drive in the left column. Click the Erase tab. Choose a format from the drop-down window. Enter a name for the volume. Looking for a method for formatting an external hard drive for Mac and Windows? This guide will walk you through the process. 2.6 Seagate Backup Plus External Hard Drive. This article will teach you how to format external hard drive for Mac and PC. How to Format External Hard Drive on Mac; Part 2. How to Format an External.
Best Answer: EDIT: I see at the Seagate site that they are offering the $19.95 Paragon HFS+ software free. See the first link below. You use a Mac formatted drive with the Paragon software. Download the HFS4WIN.exe file at the link below. Connect the drive you want to use to the Windows system. Double-click the HFS4WIN.exe file and install. When it finishes, restart.
If you have any other drives you need to use, each drive you want to use with Windows requires a new installation of the HFS4WIN.exe software. NOTE: This software only makes sense if you will just use the drive with your Windows system, since it has to be installed in Windows.
If you need other options, read on. DO NOT format any large drive volume as FAT anything ever.
You need NTFS or Mac OS Extended. If you will use the drive only with your own Windows system, you can format as Mac OS Extended, but you will need to install either MacDrive or TransMac in Windows.
![Format seagate backup plus for mac and windows 8 Format seagate backup plus for mac and windows 8](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125631121/979855833.jpg)
If you will use the drive with various Windows systems, use NTFS, and install 'NTFS For Mac' (link below) in OS X. It enables write attribute for the Apple driver. Without it, you would only be able to copy files FROM the drive in OS X.
With it, you can read from or write to (copy files to) the drive in OS X. Format matters: - FAT-32 is read-write for all OSes, but is not recommended by Microsoft for large drive volumes. FAT file systems have the problem of cluster size increasing with volume size, so it becomes quite poor in performance on large drive volumes. That's why the Windows formatting software will chop a HDD into partitions of 32 GB each when formatting FAT. exFAT suffers the same performance problem as FAT-32, except it allows use of large files (FAT-32 has 4 GB limit).
![Seagate backup plus for mac instructions Seagate backup plus for mac instructions](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125631121/557750883.jpg)
'Mac OS Extended' format is for OS X only and is the only format for Time Machine, but you can buy MacDrive or TransMac to use it with Windows. NTFS is the standard for Windows, but the Apple driver can only read from it (cannot save-copy-rename-move files on it or to it). Install NTFS-3G in OS 10.6.8 or earlier or Paragon NTFS For Mac in OS 10.7 or later to write files to it.
HSFExplorer can enable Windows to see all files on a Mac format, and thus save a file from it. The drive does not mount, so the process is similar to recovery software. Even more details are at the last link below ('Best Answer'), but that answer was given before it was known that the installer for 'NTFS-3G' could not be used in OS 10.7, so just use Pagaron's software with Lion.
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