best way to format hard drive for mac and windows

Best Way To Format Hard Drive And Windows Mac Started Up

Before continuing, make sure that you have a backup of any files that you want to keep.

Then select Disk Utility from the Utilities window and click Continue.

Best Way To Format Hard Drive And Windows Mac Started Up

If youre not erasing the disk your Mac started up from, you dont need to start up from macOS Recovery: just open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.

If youre not erasing the volume your Mac started up from, you dont need to start up from macOS Recovery: just open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.

The volume your Mac started up from is named Macintosh HD, unless you changed its name.

This is one of the final steps before selling, giving away, or trading in your Mac.

If it cant, it chooses Mac OS Extended, which works with all versions of macOS.

Earlier versions of macOS dont work with APFS-formatted volumes.

For more detail, choose File Get Info from the Disk Utility menu bar.

The File System column on the right shows the format of each volume.

Some older versions of Disk Utility offer the option to zero all data instead.

These secure-erase options arent offered or needed for solid-state drives (SSDs) and flash storage.

Best Way To Format Hard Drive For Mac And Windows