It does require Java, however, so you’ll have to install that first.

It’s the only completely free way to access a Mac-formatted drive. If you only need to get a couple files off the drive, we recommend HFSExplorer. RELATED: How to Restore Files From a Time Machine Backup on Windows Option One: HFSExplorer Is Free and Basic But be absolutely sure there’s nothing you need before you do.

Of course, if the drive doesn’t have any important files on it, you can go ahead and format it. Just don’t format the drive until you get the important files off the drive. That’s fine, because other applications do. You can then right-click in the empty space and select New Simple Volume to create a partition and format it with the Windows NTFS or FAT32 file systems.This message appears because Windows doesn’t understand Apple’s HFS+ file system. If you’re lucky, you can just right-click each partition on the Mac drive and select Delete Volume to remove the partitions. Be sure you’ve identified the Mac drive - if you accidentally delete partitions from another drive, you could damage your Windows installation or lose your files. Locate the Mac drive in the list of disks. This tool allows you to manage the partitions on drives connected to your computer - internal ones or external ones connected via USB. Press Windows Key + R to open the Run dialog, type diskmgmt.msc into the box, and press Enter to open it. RELATED: Understanding Hard Drive Partitioning with Disk Managementįirst, open the Windows Disk Management tool. You’ll probably want to uninstall Java when you’re done.Įrase the Mac Partitions, Including the EFI System Partition HFSExplorer unfortunately requires you install Java to use it, but it’s the only free option here. If you only have Windows systems available, you can use HFSExplorer to copy files from the drive onto your Windows system drive or another drive. If you have a Mac lying around, you can plug the drive into a Mac and back up the files. Instead, we’ll just be wiping the drive and starting over from scratch. This process won’t actually convert the file system. First, back up the data on the Mac-formatted drive if you have anything important on it.

How to format my hard drive mac