No matter the reason why, this can be a very frustrating thing to deal with, especially if you have just backed up a large amount of files onto your new drive. It can also happen if you are switching between using the drive on a Mac and a Windows PC. In some cases, you don’t even need to eject it improperly for this to happen – it just happens from one usage to the next. If you see this at the very bottom under Sharing & Permissions, then you have a problem. If you’re having trouble copying a file to your external hard drive, right click on it in your Finder and select Get Info. Instead, you’ll now have a read-only external hard drive that won’t allow you to do backups.

Usually, you just get a quick warning message and things return to normal.īut sometimes, something worse will happen. But sometimes, things happen that can really turn that ease of use into “What do I do with this?” One of those things is when you unplug a USB storage device without ejecting it properly. Mac computers are easy to use, for the most part. WARNING: Formatting the drive will erase all data on the drive, so you should copy any data you want off the drive prior to formatting.Need help with your computer? At Boxaid remote computer repair we can help you with Windows or Mac problems such as slow performance or virus removal service at an affordable price. Check step 2 to confirm Disk Utility is Showing All Devices. NOTE: If you don’t see Scheme, then make sure that all devices are showing and the non-indented entry is selected.

Select the non-indented entry, you will see Media in the nameĬlick the button labelled Erase in the menu which will bring up this window.

Click View in the upper left and select Show All Devices.

To open Disk Utility - Open Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility IMPORTANT: Reformatting the drive will erase all data on the drive, so you should copy any data you want off the drive prior to formatting.

When using between macOS and Windows, drives should always be formatted on macOS because not all Windows allocation unit sizes (cluster sizes) are supported by macOS which will prevent the drive from mounting.

ExFAT drives must be safely ejected to prevent corruption because ExFAT is not a journaled file system.

Starting with Big Sur, APFS is now the default for Time Machine.

ExFAT is not compatible with Time Machine.

It is important to keep the following in mind when formatting to ExFAT:

Not sure what version you are using? Click here to determine your version of macOS IMPORTANT: This article applies to the following macOS version:

Have mac format seagate drive