For both Windows and Mac users, DivX is a fully-formed, universal and refined media player with user-friendly controls and intuitive interface. The same as the other best video players in this review, DivX is able to handle most formats you throw at it — whether it be the software’s native DIVX format. Use these steps to format external hard drives for both operating systems. A vast majority of video production will be done on a Mac or Windows operating system, so we aren’t going to cover Linux. So Fat32 may not the best format.

Choose a file system for both Windows and Mac For those people who possess both Windows PC and Mac, they certainly want to format hard drive for Windows PC and Mac. Since both Mac operating system (OS) and Windows OS uses different default file systems, choose a proper file system is essential.

Basically, there are two kinds of file systems that can be read or written in both Mac and Windows, FAT32 and exFAT. FAT32 was first introduced in Windows 95. It has been stable and largely used for USB flash drives and other external drives. However, FAT32 does have its limits. The available FAT32 volume size is from 512MB to 2TB, and the maximum file size is 4GB.

Therefore, Windows uses NTFS to replace it as its system drive. Compared with FAT32, exFAT has much larger file size and partition size limits, which generally do not concern you. Download video player for mac. As one coin has two sizes, the shortage of exFAT is a high chance of entire file system corruption compared to FAT32, because it doesn't provide journaling. Comparing the advantages or disadvantages of both files systems, you can choose the right file system for your hard drive based on your needs. How to Format a Drive in Windows? In Windows, you can use the built-in tool Disk Management to format an internal or external hard drive for Mac in a few simple steps.

If you want the hard drive to be able to handle files larger than 4GB in Windows and Mac, you need to format it with exFat. As mentioned before, you should frequently in case the exFAT corrupts. To format a hard drive to exFAT with Disk Management: 1. Connect the disk drive to your Windows PC.

Open the Disk Management by typing 'disk management' in Windows search box and selecting the option Create and format hard disk partitions in the search results. Right-click on the partition of the external drive that needs formatting and select the Format option. In the next screen, select the exFAT file system and click OK to start the format.

If the hard drive was shown as unallocated space, you can select New Simple Volume option and follow the New Simple Volume wizard to create partitions formatted with exFAT. Windows will format the drive as exFAT and you'll be able to use the drive on both Windows and Mac. Format hard drive with freeware To format external hard drive for mac and windows, you can also use third party software, AOMEI Partition Assistant. It allows you to format a hard drive to NTFS, FAT32, EXFAT, Ext2, and Ext3.

If you want to use the drive to store crucial files that are not larger than 4GB, you can format the drive with FAT32 file system. To format a hard drive to FAT32: 1., install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. Right click the drive which needs formatting and select Format Partition.

In the pop-out windows, select the FAT32 as its file system and enter a partition label if you like. Then click OK to continue. Preview the partition layout. If that’s what you want, click Apply to execute the process.

Besides, AOMEI Partition Assistant also enables you to without data loss, Make bootable media, Create Partition, and many more. In conclusion, to format hard drive for Windows PC and Mac, you can choose either exFAT or FAT32 depending on your requirement for the drive.

This answer explains how to format a drive in the exFAT or FAT32 file system. This allows the drive to be used on both Windows and macOS.*END A Western Digital external hard drive can be used on both Windows and Mac OSX. This is useful if a drive is being used under both to move files between the two environments. Most WD Drives come formatted in the NTFS (Windows) or HFS+ (Mac) format. For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a PC and Mac computer, it must be formatted to or file format. FAT32 has several limitations, including a 4 GB per-file limit.