

The next section discusses the correct way to format your Mac storage drive without data loss. DO NOT click the Initialize button unless it’s a new drive or you have recovered data from it. So, you end up losing your data.Īlso, when you connect a corrupt or unreadable external storage drive to your Mac, macOS will prompt you to initialize the disk. When your Mac storage drive has stored data on it, and you accidentally erase the drive in a new file system format, macOS removes all references to the data.

MS-DOS (FAT) or exFAT format to make your external storage drive cross-compatible with both macOS and WindowsĪ new Mac with its built-in solid-state drive or hard drive comes pre-formatted with a file system that contains the macOS.
#Formatting hdd for mac without disk utility mac os#

Back Up Your Mac Hard Drive before FormattingĢ. Download the free-to-try Mac data recovery software to recover your erased hard drive data. The blog post shares a few safe methods to format your Mac hard drive in the desired file system format, without the risk of any data loss.
