All external hard drives are physically the same, whether or not they’re marketed as being Mac-friendly or not. Mac-ready drives usually cost a little more for the same piece of hardware that you’d otherwise get. So, if you buy an external hard drive that is formatted for Windows, you need to reformat it for Mac first before you can use it.

Follow along for the full guide on how to partition a USB drive in macOS High Sierra. Partition USB Drive macOS High Sierra. Things you will need: A Macintosh computer running macOS High Sierra (10.13) or higher. A USB key (any size GB is fine) OR; an external hard drive (USB or otherwise, any size GB will work).

If you bought it for Time Machine, this happens automatically at the step where it warns you that it’s about to erase the drive. Unfortunately, with the introduction of the much-loathed new version of Disk Utility in El Capitan/Sierra, this reformatting process does not work. You’ll get an error. But if you do it a second time, then it works. It’s a bug, but a careless one, and continues to leaves me scratching my head as to what problems Apple thought the redesigned Disk Utility is intended to solve. It even features awkward grammar. Download myst for mac os x 1. I’m not a fan.

To reformat a Windows formatted drive using Disk Utility, click on the drive (not the volume shown underneath it), and click Erase. Make sure the volume is Mac OS Extended Journaled, and the partition map type is GUID (these are usually the defaults). Erase it, ignore the error, and then do it all again. Your drive will be ready to use.

On Mac systems hard drives can be formatted in different formats. If a hard drive is formatted 'case-sensitive', the system distinguishes between uppercase and lowercase letters that are used for volume and folder names. Case-sensitive hard drives are not supported by Native Instruments. To find out if you are using a case-sensitive hard drive, follow these steps: • Open Disk Utility from Mac HD > Applications > Utilities. • Choose the hard drive volume that you want to verify from the list on the left hand side of the window. • The description shows if the selected hard drive's format is Case-sensitive: Make sure to only use hard drives that are not formatted case-sensitive for installing and using NI products on Mac computers. Please contact Apple Support to find out how to change the format of your hard drive.