If you open the Disk Utility application on your Mac with the disk connected, you should be able to see it in the list of disks on the left hand column of the Disk Utility window. If you click on the the partition (i.e. The name you see in your file tree when the disk mounts under OS X) what do you see for the Format at the bottom of the window? If it is Mac OS Extended or a something similar then your disk is using the HFS+ file system, which is the default for OS X. This file system type is not natively supported by Windows, which is why the disk will not mount when you plug it into your laptop. You have a couple of options: • Reformat the disk to FAT32, which () is the lowest common denominator in file systems between OS X and Windows.
In addition to limitation to file sizes. Depends on the filesystem type and partitioning scheme whether it'll work on both. If the hard drive were formatted for HFS it would not show up on the Windows Computer. If the Partition Scheme were Apple Partition Map, it would also not show up. For maximum compatibility, back up everything from the external hard drive onto your Mac. Open Disk Utility, select the external hard drive and go to Partition. Under Volume Scheme, choose 1 Partition, then click Options.
Click the 'Erase' button, and then wait for OS X to reformat the drive with the new file system. Return to the Finder window, open the folder where you saved the files from the external hard drive and press 'Command-A.' Press 'Command-X' to cut the files to the clipboard.
This wikiHow teaches you how to format a Seagate Hard Drive on a Mac computer. You can format a drive using the Disk Utility in Mac. Before formatting any hard drive, it's a good idea to backup any data or files you want to save before formatting. From the Disk Utility window you ahould see your drive listed on the left hand side, single click it to select it then click on Erase to the right of the list of drives and when prompted choose your partitiion and format type which you shouold set to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) if you are just using it on the Mac as you will get best use of it thi way.
Choose Master Boot Record. Then choose MSDOS under the Format menu.
Then click Apply. Best free online video converter for mac. Your hard drive should work on either computer at that point, as well as others you may try to use it on. If you want something that both machines / OSes can read a write, and that can act as an emergency boot drive for either machine, do this: • Reformat the drive, using the GUID Partition Table (GPT) as the low-level partition table format. Avoid Master Boot Record, which Intel Macs can't boot from. Also avoid Apple Partition Map, which Windows machines would have no clue about. • Give the drive one HFS+J (Mac OS Extended, Journaled) partition large enough to install Mac OS X onto (10GB+). This volume format accommodates Mac OS X and Mac files the best.
• Give the drive one FAT32 (MS-DOS) partition, which both Mac OS X and Windows can read and write. This is a good place to put files that you want both Mac and Windows to have read/write access to. The FAT volume format is showing its age, but a huge variety of OSes know how to work with it. • If you want the drive to have a volume that's more optimal for Windows than FAT, give it an NTFS partition as well.