Situation #1 You have your important files in the drive from your/your friend's PC No. It doesn't need reformatting. All you have to do is, download this driver from the official Seagate site.
what Paragon does is, it provides write access to the drive in Mac OS without having to reformat it. Situation #2 You don't use PC's at all. Even your friends don't use windows. Go for formatting the disk in MacOS extended (journaled) format (HFS+ format), using disk utility.
The light on my external drive is blinking. What does it mean? How do I use a Backup Plus or GoFlex 'for Mac' drive with a Windows computer? Hard Disks Do.
Here's how you can format (erase) your disk - Edit #1:- There are ways in which you can read MacOS extended format disk in windows and vice versa. How you can do that is an answer for another question.
If you read my previous post about, you know that I bought a and managed to create two partitions on the disk — one for Mac backup purposes, and the other for personal use. In this article, I’m going to show you how to backup your Mac data to an external hard drive. You should backup your Mac on a regular basis, especially if you’re planning to perform macOS updates. I did this several weeks ago while preparing my MacBook Pro for the High Sierra update.
You may also be interested in taking a look at I encountered during that process just in case you also want to upgrade your Mac to the latest macOS. Please note that the backup tool that I used is Time Machine, a built-in app provided by Apple.
If you want to backup your Mac data without using Time Machine, there are also alternatives worth considering. Where is Time Machine on Mac? As I said, Time Machine is a built-in app within macOS ever since OS X 10.5. To find it, click on the Apple logo on the top left corner of your screen, then select System Preferences. In the Preferences Pane, you’ll see the app located between “Date & Time” and “Accessibility”. What does Time Machine Backup? Time Machine is definitely the easiest way to backup Mac.
In addition, the app is created and recommended by Apple. Once you have a timely backup, it’s incredibly easy to restore all or part of your data in case of accidental deletion or a hard drive crash.
So, what kind of data does Time Machine backup? Photos, videos, documents, applications, system files, accounts, preferences, messages, you name it: They all can be backed up by Time Machine. You can then restore your data from a Time Machine snapshot. To do so, first open Finder, then Applications, and click on Time Machine to continue. Image from Apple.com Be aware that the recovery process can be only be conducted when your Mac is bootable. A Step-by-Step Guide to Backing up Mac to an External Hard Drive Note: the screenshots below are taken based on macOS 10.12.5 Sierra.
![How to reformat seagate external drive for mac How to reformat seagate external drive for mac](/uploads/1/2/4/1/124111438/848518225.jpg)
If your Mac has High Sierra or an older version, differences may exist, but the process should look similar to what’s displayed below. Step 1: Connect your external hard drive. First, use the USB cable (or USC-C cable if you’re on a newest Mac model with ) that comes with your external drive to connect that drive to your Mac. Once the disk icon shows up on your desktop (if it doesn’t, open Finder Preferences General, and here make sure you’ve checked “External disks” to let them show on the desktop), move on to Step 2. Step 2: Select the disk for backup.
Now open Time Machine (I tell you how above) and select the disk you want to use. I have partitioned my Seagate drive into two new volumes, “Backup” and “Personal Use”, as you see from the screenshot. I chose “Backup”. Step 3: Confirm backup (optional). If you have used another disk for backup before, Time Machine will ask you whether you want to stop backing up to the previous disk and use the new one instead.
It’s up to you. I selected “Replace”. Step 4: Wait until the process is complete. Now Time Machine will start to backup all your data. The progress bar gives you an estimate of how much time is left before the backup is complete. I found it a bit inaccurate: Initially, it said “About 5 hours remaining”, but it only took two hours to finish.
It’s worth noting that the remaining time may vary from case to case depending on the write speed of your external hard drive. After about an hour and a half, it says only 15 minutes remaining Step 5: Eject your external drive and unplug it.
When the backup procedure is completed, don’t rush to disconnect your device as this could cause potential disk problems. Instead, go back to the main desktop, locate the volume that your external hard drive represents, right-click and select Eject. Then, you can safely unplug the device and put it in a safe place. One More Thing Like any other hardware device, an external hard drive will fail sooner or later.
It is advisable to make a copy of the data on your external drive — as they say, a “backup of your backups”! One good option is to use cloud storage services. I now use, and I really like it because the app is so easy to use, and it also allows me to automatically. Backblaze and Carbonite are also popular options in the market, though I have yet to give them a try. I hope you find this tutorial helpful. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of data backup these days, especially when my mid-2012 MacBook hard drive died all of a sudden.
I’ve also seen cases where my friend’s computer and hard drive failed. You can imagine their desperation. Without a proper backup, it’s really hard to restore data. Although you could try a third-party recovery program like and, chances are they won’t get all your lost data back.
Anyway, the main takeaway I want you to have from this article is this: Backup your Mac with Time Machine and create a second or third copy of those backups if you can. Hi JP I have a Mac Book Pro retina that I purchased in May 2013. Ever since I updated to Os SIERRA ( not High SIERRA) I have been getting the beachball. So I reboot and sometimes it goes away, sometimes I turn it off completely for an hour. I never had this problem with Yosemite. Anyway, I use time machine to back it up and about 6 months ago, I started cloning my machine in Sierra. I also have a clone of my machine when it was Yosemite.
But I don’t want to go backwards. I am presently copying all my docs, music, pictures, etc, to even another external drive, as I am thinking of wiping my computer clean and doing a clean install of High Sierra.
They say the beachball is a sign that one of the programs is hanging up, but I have yet to determine which it is. Even with ALL PROGRAMS closed, Finder has produced beachball as well. I admit I have probably moved some files to places they don’t normalky go over the 5 years I have had the Mac.
I DONT USE the cloud(too paranoid) haha. I have been getting help from a MAC guru and so I have been getting lazy about doing things myself, and I want to get back to doing it myself. As I sit her waiting for the copying to be completed AT WHAT SEEMS LIKE A SNAILS PACE, I am just googling stuff and found your Blog. It is so annoying when the MAC slows down!
It was just nice to read your article making it all sound so easy. I knew my PC backwards and forwards and could do ANYTHING on it and knew how all worked, but it had its issues always fighting with the virus software. I just realized I don’t even know why I am writing to you, as I did have a question when I first started this message. However I can’t renember it now.