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format external hard drive without losing data

I have a 2TB external hard drive full of work that I have been using on window but I can't use it to save data from my new Mac book air. Is there a way to format my 2TB external hard drive to use on Mac & PC without losing data already on there.

By default, OS X cannot write to an NTFS (Windows) formatted drive, but it can read from it.  There is a free "driver" available which will allow your Air to also write to NTFS formatted drives.  This way you don't need to reformat your drive:

https://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/ntfs3g.html

Formatting a hard drive always means: data is deleted from the hard drive. So: Save the data from the hard drive, format it, and put the data back.

On the fly formatting from NTFS to FAT32 is not possible without loosing data.

By default, OS X cannot write to an NTFS (Windows) formatted drive, but it can read from it.  There is a free "driver" available which will allow your Air to also write to NTFS formatted drives.  This way you don't need to reformat your drive:

https://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/ntfs3g.html

Stress Test wrote:

 

On the fly formatting from NTFS to FAT32 is not possible without loosing data.

Not true. I have converted drives from FAT32 to NTFS, and vis versa, all while preserving the data on the drive. There is a number of ways to do it on a Windows machine. What I don't know is if there is the same software available for doing on a Mac. Since the OP mentions a WinPC, he might still have that capability himself. The one note of caution is that on an NTFS drive, you want to make sure that there are no individual files you want tot keep that are larger than FAT32 can support (4 GB). Here is one solution.

Link worked https://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/ntfs3g.html 

Thanks

Hi I am new to Mac so prob doing something wrong! I need to download this free driver but the link just takes me to the apple download main page with no info on this driver. Please help...Thanks

Try installing the current version of MacFuse. Here:  

https://static.caurea.org/MacFUSE/MacFUSE-2.1.7.dmg

Thanks for your help but this page does not work... 404 page not found ?

Try this one:

https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23729/macfuse

When downloaded and you connect your drive message will

Come up click force should start working

SP Forsythe & Others,

Does anyone know if there is that same kind of software available for doing on a Mac?

Hi

I've accidentally plugged my hard drive (which I was formatted for use on my MacBook Air) into my xbox 360 and it seems to have formatted it for windows devices. I was wondering if there is any way I can unformat it without losing data or installing a driver? Because I can't copy the contents of my hard drive directly to my MacBook because there is too much capacity and if I copy it to a friends hard drive this surely will have the same problem of as soon as I want to copy the files from his hard drive back to my unformatted one, it'll just format mine back to a windows one again (hope that makes sense haha)

Any advice/ways around this issue?

Ok I downloaded the program but it doesnt do anything unless there is a way to use it and I just need help on figuring it out on how to use it.

Hiya,

For new people searching, you need to download a third party program that will allow the hard drive to read and write.

Download the file in the following link and follow instructions- your drive will automatically work when the laptop restarts. You don't need to reformat and lose everything

https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/support/downloads/item/ntfs-driver-for-mac-os-maste r-dl/

Dear JoeyR,

I've opened this link but there is set of tools. I didn't get any tool/driver with such name "NTFS" or "Disk Utility". Please provide some link. I am completely new with OSX.

最后更新：2017-08-21 13:16:58

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