Ultimate Guide: How to Format a Hard Drive

Why would anyone need to know how to format a hard drive? If you’re selling your computer, you’ll want to make sure you remove all personal information. Or, maybe you’re experiencing problems with your device and want www.mcafee/activate to clean mcafee.com/activate product key the reason, we’ll get you comfortable formatting www.mcafee.com/activate a hard drive in no time.

Before you begin…

Before jumping in, there’s a bit www.mcafee.com/activate product key of terminology you should know. First disk and hard drive have the same meaning. But people often use other terms delete and format interchangeably www.mcafee.com/activate download, while they’re actually quite different.

  • Delete:
  • Erase: 
  • Wipe: 
  • Format: 
  • Reformat: 

Now that we’ve got that down, there are a few more things you should know about the formatting process, for both Windows www.mcafee.com/activate product key and Mac computers.

» Identify which type of hard drive you have

There are different types of hard drives you may be looking to format. 

Your www.mcafee.com/activate www.mcafee/activate computer, and it can take the form of a flash drive (also called thumb drive or USB) or a larger enclosure that can  www.mcafee.com/activate download contain either a solid-state drive (SSD) or hard disk drive (HDD).

» Choose the right file system

Now that you’re clear on the differences between erasing and wiping, and between internal and external drives, it’s time to select a file system mcafee.com/activate product key. File systems are rules that govern how an OS stores and reads files. When you format a hard drive, you’ll be asked to choose your desired file system.

If you’re using Windows, you can choose between NTFS, FAT32, and exFAT:

  • NTFS:
  • FAT32: 

Both NTFS and FAT32 will eventually become 

If you’re using a Mac, you’ll generally use the APFS (Apple File System).

  • APFS
  • OS Extended (HFS+) 

If you want to move files between Windows and Mac, go for exFAT.

  • exFAT:

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