- Mac Os X Format External Hard Drive Command Line Mac
- Mac Os X Format External Hard Drive Command Lines
- Mac Os X Format External Hard Drive Command Line Drive
Most users use Disk Utility to erase a disk or hard drive. But some Mac users might need to erase them from the command line on Mac OS. To do that, the only thing you need is a bit of precise syntax to make sure that you are erasing the proper disk.
Here I'll show you how you can erase and format a disk using the command line.
May 13, 2013 You can mount and unmount drives, volumes, and disks from the command line of MacOS and Mac OS X. For many users, the easiest way to unmount a drive in Mac is to either just drag a volume into the Trash, use the eject keys, disconnect the drive, or use one of the force eject methods. Jun 26, 2019 Format or Erase a Mac Hard Drive - All Formats Explained APFS, HFS+ Mac OS Journaled, FAT, ExFAT - Duration: 10:38. Gemsbok Apple Tips and Tricks 8,464 views 10:38. Mar 15, 2018 Don’t Format the Drive! (Yet) When you connect a Mac-formatted drive to Windows, you’ll be informed that “you need to format the disk in drive X: before you can use it.” Don’t click the “Format disk” button or Windows will erase the contents of the drive–click “Cancel”!
Working with Terminal
Start off by running the following command in the command line: Diskutil list
This is going to list all the mounted drives on your Mac.
Once you have found the proper drive to erase, just copy its identifier so you can use it for the next command. Then pick a name and a system format type. This is the syntax we need: Diskutil eraseDisk FILESYSTEM DISKNAME DISKIDENTIFIER
Let’s say the disk I want to erase has “/dev/disk5s2” as its identifier and I’m going to use Mac OS Extended Journaled (JHFS+) as the system format type and name it “Empty”. The syntax is going to look like this: Diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ Empty /dev/disk5s2
It’s important to keep in mind that if you run the eraseDisk command, the target disk is going to lose all its data, so make sure you are erasing the proper disk.
If you need different system format types, here are a few references you could use instead of JHFS+:
- Mac OS Extended: HFS+
- MS-DOS fat32: FAT32
- ExFAT: ExFAT
Here on this page, we'll include two free methods to help you quick format or fully clean up a hard drive with ease.
Method 1. CHKDSK format Full Guide>>
Method 2. Hard Drive Formatting Tool Full Guide>>
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Formatting hard disk, USB flash drive, pen drive, and memory card, etc., is meaningful and helpful in solving some device issues. For examples:
- e.g. 1. Incompatible file system error:
- In most cases, you have to convert FAT32 to NTFS or NTFS to FAT32 by formatting so to make storage devices recognizable by Windows, Mac or other platforms.
e.g. 2. To format and clean hard drive for Windows installation.
- e.g. 3. The hard drive is corrupted or it contains soft bad sectors:
- When device access is denied due to the RAW file system, then Windows asks you to format it before you can use it.
DiskPart Format vs Hard Drive Formatting Tool
Generally, there are three ways to initiate the task - Windows quick format (by right-clicking or using Disk Management), Windows DiskPart command, or a free third-party hard drive format tool. Windows quick formatting is easy to get started but with limited functions.
So the last two options become the best choices. What's the difference though? And which way fits you the best?
Here is a feature comparison list between DiskPart Format Command and EaseUS free hard drive formatting tool for you to refer to:
DiskPart Format Command | EaseUS Free Formatting Tool |
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For a new beginner, we suggest you try the free format tool recommended in Part 2. For experienced users, you may run DiskPart command in Part 1 for help.
Note: Both formatting solutions will remove hard drive data completely. Therefore, make sure that you have backed up all important data in advance before taking the operations.
Format Hard Drive Using DiskPart Format Command
To format a hard drive using DiskPart, you need to follow the commands below carefully. Any mistakes will cause serious problems.
Here we'll take how to format hard drive using CMD on Windows 10 as an example to show you to detail steps:
# 1. Quick Format A Hard Drive Partition
Step 1. Open Command Prompt by right-clicking on Windows icon, select 'Search' and type: command prompt.
Right-click on Command Prompt and select 'Run as administrator'.
Step 2. Type diskpart in Command Prompt and hit Enter.
Step 3. Hit Enter each time when you type below command lines in DiskPart to quick format hard drive:
- list disk
- select disk 2 (Replace 2 with your disk number)
- list volume
- select volume 10 (Replace 10 with the volume number of the partition that you want to format)
- format fs=ntfs quick (If you need to format a hard drive partition to FAT32 or other file systems, replace ntfs with fat32, exfat, etc.)
- Warning
- If you accidentally input format without fs=ntfs quick or fs=fat32 quick in DiskPart command prompt, it will execute a full format on your selected hard drive partition.
- This command will erase all saved data sector by sector. In other words, you'll permanently lose all erased data on the drive with no recovery chance.
Step 4. Type exit and hit Enter to close the program when DiskPart reports it has successfully formatted the volume.
# 2. Fully Clean and Format A Whole Hard Drive
Step 1. On Windows 10, press Windows + X, select 'Search', and type command prompt, right-click on it and choose 'Run as administrator'.
Step 2. On the Command Prompt black window, type diskpart and hit 'Enter'.
Step 3. Now type list disk and press 'Enter'.
All the disk drives will be listed, including your external drives that connected to the computer.
Step 4. Refer to the list disk information, type select disk + disk number, for example, select disk 1 and press enter. You're telling diskpart to format disk 1.
Step 5. Go on to type clean. This step starts to clean up all files and folders on the selected hard disk.
Step 6. Type create partition primary and press 'Enter'.
Step 7. After diskpart successfully created the specified partition, type format fs=ntfs (or format fs=exfat) and press 'Enter'. You're telling diskpart to format the drive with a file system, let it be NTFS, exFAT, etc.
Step 8. At last, assign a drive letter to the newly created partition by typing assign.
Step 9. Type exit to close the DiskPart Command Prompt window when the process finishes.
That's a complete guide of formatting hard disk with diskpart format commands.
Format Hard Drive with DiskPart Alternative - Formatting Tool
Another easy way to format a hard drive is to apply a powerful DiskPart alternative formatting tool - a free partition manager software for help.
Here we'd like to recommend you try EaseUS Partition Master Free. It offers easy steps to allow you quick format an internal HDD or completely clean up an external USB stick, pen drive or SD card. The whole process will be easier than handling the command prompt.
# 1. Quick Format Hard Drive
Step 1: Run EaseUS Partition Master, right-click the hard drive partition you intend to format and choose 'Format'.
Step 2: In the new window, set the Partition label, File system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3), and Cluster size for the partition to be formatted, then click 'OK'.
Step 3: Then you will see a warning window, click 'OK' in it to continue.
Step 4: Click the 'Execute Operation' button in the top-left corner to review the changes, then click 'Apply' to start formatting the partition on your hard drive.
# 2. Fully Clean Up Hard Drive by Erasing Disk
The following is not a formatting process but it works as the same as DiskPart clean command in cleaning up a hard drive. With it, you can simply erase everything on a hard drive, leaving it as an empty new drive with full size.
Step 1: Install and launch EaseUS Partition Master.
Select the HDD or SSD which you want to wipe. And right-click to choose 'Wipe Data'.
Step 2: Set the number of times to wipe data.
You can set to 10 at most. Then Click 'OK'.
Step 3: Check the message.
A message tells you that the computer would restart after disk erase is recommended. Then click 'OK'.
Mac Os X Format External Hard Drive Command Line Mac
Step 4: Click 'Apply' to apply the changes.
Click 'Execute the operation' and then click 'Apply' to start wiping data.
Bottom Line
Mac Os X Format External Hard Drive Command Lines
On this page, we included two major free methods to help you quick format or fully clean up a hard drive disk by using DiskPart format command lines or a free formatting tool.
Mac Os X Format External Hard Drive Command Line Drive
If you are having further formatting issues, check the How-To page or use the Search option on our website - https:www.easeus.com to find exact solutions for your issues.