Steps to Format a Drive for Use on Windows and macOS Using exFat

Guided Assist Answer ID 50277: Format External Drive as exFat using Windows for use on Windows and macOS Guided Assist Answer ID 50276: Format External Drive as exFat using macOS for use on macOS and Windows Guided Assist

Western Digital drives come formatted as NTFS (Windows) or HFS+ (macOS).
The drive must be formatted as exFAT when used on both Windows and macOS computers.

Critical: The process is Data Destructive and cannot be undone. ALL THE DATA ON THE DRIVE WILL BE LOST!

Steps to Format a Drive on Windows

1. Right-click on Start, the Windows logo on the bottom-left of the screen.
   Click Disk Management.


2. The lower pane of Disk Management will show a list of drives.
   Choose the drive that needs to be formatted.
   
   A blue bar will show above the drive if there is a partition on it.
   Right-click the bar and click Delete Volume.
   
   IMPORTANT:
   A drive that shows Not Initialized will need to be intialized prior to format.
   
   Need more help?
   Answer ID 18824: How To Initialize Secondary Drives on Windows.
   
   

   



3. A drive will show as Unallocated when there is no partition on it.
   Right-click the Unallocated space.
   Click New Simple Volume.
   
   

   



4. Click Next.
   
   

   



5. Choose the volume size.
   Click Next.
   
   

   The maximum disk space is selected y default. It is recommended to leave it at this size.

   
   

   



6. Assign a drive letter.
   Click Next.
   
   

   



7. Set the file system to exFAT.
   Set Allocation unit size to 1024.
   Choose a name for the Volume Label.
   Check the box Perform a quick format.
   Click Next.
   
   

   



8. Click Finish.
   
   

   



Need more help?
• Answer ID 51139: How to Fix the Windows Was Unable to Complete the Format Message on an External Drive
• Answer ID 18341: How to Fix the Windows Was Unable to Complete the Format Message on an Internal Drive

Steps to Format a Drive on macOS

1. Connect the drive to the computer.


2. Press CMD + Spacebar to open Spotlight Search.
   Type Disk Utility
   Press Enter.


3. Click View.
   Click Show All Devices.
   
   

   



4. Select the drive on the left.
   
   

   



5. Enter a name for the drive.
   
   

   



6. Click the Format drop down.
   Select ExFAT.
   
   


7. Select GUID Partition Map.
   Click Erase.
   
   

   



8. Click Done.
   
   

   



Need more help?
• Answer ID 51852: Steps to Resolve macOS Error Code 8 File System Repair Failed