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How To Access Mac Formatted Hard Drive In Windows



  • HFS Explorer is a pretty good software that can help you read your Mac-formatted drives on Windows. As its name suggests, the software only works with the drives that are formatted with the HFS.
  • Similarly, Windows OS will ask us to format the HFS+ formatted drive when we connecting such a disk, let along edit files saved on HFS+ formatted hard disks unless we resort to third party programs. But luckily, there are file systems well supported by both Mac and Windows PC, and they are FAT32 (it might be called MS-DOS on Mac) and exFAT.

By default, your Windows PC can’t access the drives that are formatted in the Mac file system. It’s easier for your PC to read NTFS (Windows file system) and FAT32/exFAT, however, the Windows 10 can’t actually read drives formatted in other file systems that are likely coming from Mac (HFS+) or Linux (ext4).

Best External Hard Drives For Mac

The UFS+ is the file system by Apple’s Macintosh and if you are using a Mac-formatted drive on your PC, chances are it’s not readable by Microsoft Windows 10. The macOS Extended (HFS+) is a file system used by Mac and it can only be read by default in Mac systems, unlike Windows. If you are trying to use a drive formatted in Mac on Windows 10, it’s possible. Here’s how.

How To Read Mac’s UFS Drive On Windows 10

How to read Mac-formatted drives in Windows for free If you have a portable hard drive for your Mac but want to connect it to a laptop or PC with Windows, here's what you need to do. Connect your Mac formatted drive to your Windows PC and launch the HFSExplorer with admin privileges. Now go to “File” menu and click on “Load file system from device.”. It will trace your connected. Connect the Mac-formatted external hard drive to the Windows computer properly. Launch HFSExplorer as administrator on your computer. Select File from the menu bar at the top of the opening window. Choose Load file system from device from the submenu (you can also press Ctrl + L directly).

To read drives formatted in Mac on your Windows 10 PC, here’s what you need to do, just follow these simple steps.

  1. Get this free tool called HFSExplorer for Windows.
  2. Install and launch the program, you will need Java to use this software. It will prompt you if your system doesn’t have Java installed, if you already have, it will run normally.
  3. Connect your Mac-formatted drive on your Windows PC and select ‘Load file system from the device’ from File in the menu bar. Click Load.
  4. You will see the contents of the HFS+ drive in the app window. Choose the files or folders you want to copy, click Extract to copy and save to a specified folder, the files or folders will be copied to the location you choose on your PC.

Don’t expect any fancy UI or any system integration that allows you to access the drive from the Windows Explorer just like you usually do for other drives. This tool is good if you need to get a few files out of the drive, not recommended if you are looking for a chunk of files to extract out of it, the process might be a tad difficult and time-consuming.

Also, the HFSExplorer doesn’t support write access to the drive, if you want to copy anything in the drive, it’s not possible with this tool. Use it if you want to copy the data from the drive. Check on the alternative if you want the read and write access with better integration.

Best external hard drives for mac

Better Alternative?

An alternative to it is the Paragon HFS+ software that seamlessly integrates into the Windows such that you will be using the drive as you normally do with other drives supported by Windows. Plugging in the drive, and you will see a device connected and shown in the explorer along with your internal drive.

  • Get the software Paragon HFS+ for Windows and install it as you would do for other Windows programs.
  • That’s it, restart the PC and connect the drive.
  • You will be able to see the drive in the explorer which can be accessed by the keyboard shortcut Windows logo key + E or double click on This PC on desktop.

The only downside is that this software is not free, you will spend about $19.95 for it, however, the good part is it offers a 10-day free trial to give it a try. You can either save the money if you are just copying the data or get the write access with system-wide integration for a mere cost.

In the end, it’s now possible to use the Mac drive on Windows, although not in a straightforward way, you may end up using the apps for file transfers or unlikely buying out softwares. It is recommended to format the drive in the exFAT system to get things easier, this helps if you are using the drive frequently on both the systems.

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Usually Windows cannot read Mac formatted drive, but if you wish to use third party tools that can fill up the gap and provide access to Mac interface with Apple’s HFS+ file system on windows.

One thing you should keep in mind while dealing with this kind of scenario is that when you connect your Mac formatted drive to Windows, you will be informed to erase it with notification “you need to format the disk in drive X: before you can use it.” Just don’t click “Format” or else all the contents of the drive will be gone once and for all. Castle story mac download. Rather click “Cancel” to avoid the situation. Cashman casino free coins android. The message generally pops up because Windows does not understand or recognize the Apple’s HFS+ file system. So don’t format until you get the important files out of the drive. But if it does not contain any important files, then you can surely go ahead by clicking the “Format” button.

Here in this article we would use certain third party tools to read the Mac formatted drive on Windows. Just carry on reading to learn the methods in real.

Method #1: Use HFSExplorer To Read Mac on Windows

It is freeware software available easily on the internet and can be used to read Mac files on Windows interface. Although HFSExplorer is not that fancy in appearance, but it does not install any driver that gets integrated with windows file explorer. So you can only open, read and copy the Mac OS files to Windows directory. In order to know its usage read carefully the steps mentioned below:

Step 1. Download HFSExplorer and install it accurately on your Windows PC.

Step 2. Connect your Mac formatted drive to your Windows PC and launch the HFSExplorer with admin privileges.

Step 3. Now go to “File” menu and click on “Load file system from device.”. It will trace your connected drive all of its own accord and you can easily load it.

Step 4. Once the files system is loaded you can see the file contents of the Mac formatted drive on the Graphical window.

Step 5. Select your files, and click “Extract” and choose a folder to save the extracted materials. They will straight away be copied to the location you have chosen on PC.

Also read: How to wipe a Mac clean before selling

Method #2:Open .Pages on Windows using iCloud

Opening a .page file format on Windows is not as simple as double-clicking the file and accessing it right away. But as long as you have the access to Apple ID, or any web browser like Chrome, Firefox, or Internet Explorer, you can definitely pull off the task. Just go through the method description given below to actuate the task:

Adobe premiere not opening mac. Step 1. From your Windows PC, open any of your default browser and visit iCloud.com.

Step 2. Next you have to sign in with your Apple ID. If you don’t have one, you can create one by the Sign-up option posted on the webpage. Now the surprising part is that signing up for an Apple ID immediately grants you 5 GB of free iCloud storage and this is what we are going to put to use in this tutorial.

Step 3. Once you are signed in to your Apple ID, click on the “Pages” icon and new windows will pop up.

Access Mac Formatted Hard Drive On Windows 10

Step 4. Click on “Settings” icon which is actually a “gear” icon and click on “Upload Document” option from the context menu. Again a new window will open up, and you have got to browse the pages that you wish to edit and upload it.

Step 5. Now to do the editing part, there are options available:

  • Once the pages have been uploaded to iCloud, you can directly open and edit the documents utilizing web-friendly version of the Pages on the browser. It may not have all the tools you require as that of the Page app, yet it is commendable for quick changes.
  • Secondly, you can click on “Tools” icon and choose “Download a Copy” option form the sub-menu and select “word” to re-export the documents as Word-friendly files and open it using MS work in your Windows PC. The documents will be downloaded as .doc file and is made available for further download on your PC.

Step 6. Your file would now be downloaded with .doc extension which can be easily accessed with MS Word Processors.

Conclusion:

How To Access External Hard Drive Windows

Whether you use Mac or Windows OS, there shall obviously come a time when you will be bound to do use documents on both the systems, and you would definitely need a way out to open and modify documents between both the OS. Now running documents with .doc or .docx extension of windows is not that difficult to run on Mac, but if you decide to open .page file on Windows, follow the guidelines elaborated above.





How To Access Mac Formatted Hard Drive In Windows
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