To format a hard drive before you start using it in Windows, use the Disk Management utility; on a Mac, use Disk Utility.

Learning how to format a hard drive for a PC or a Mac computer is relatively easy, but there are some potential problems to consider first.

To format the hard drive in a Mac laptop or a Mac desktop computer, you use software called Disk Utility. This software ships with all Mac computers, so it’s ready to use for the formatting process.

To format the hard drive in a Mac laptop or a Mac desktop computer, you use software called Disk Utility. This software ships with all Mac computers, so it’s ready to use for the formatting process.

If you have to use a flash drive on both Macs and Windows PCs, make sure both systems can read it. Here's how to format the drive correctly.

While the Mac can use a hard drive formatted for Windows, some features may be limited. So it's a good idea to format a new hard drive specifically for macOS.

If you need a USB drive that's widely compatible with different devices, you may want to format it to FAT32. Here's how to do so on Mac and PC.

To format the hard drive in a Mac laptop or a Mac desktop computer, you use software called Disk Utility. This software ships with all Mac computers, so it’s ready to use for the formatting process.

If you need a USB drive that's widely compatible with different devices, you may want to format it to FAT32. Here's how to do so on Mac and PC.