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Posted by Admin to Bitlocker for Mac on November 21th, 2017
Since the PC and Mac are two different operating systems, they use different file systems. By default, Macs use HFS, while PCs use NTFS, which are not compatible with each other. If you plan on using an external drive with both Macs and PCs, you should format the disk with the exFAT file system instead. You can format the drive on your Mac or Windows computer. Part 1: Format a USB drive as exFAT on Mac. While Mac OS X includes only read-only support for NTFS, Macs offer full read-write support for exFAT. ExFAT drives can be accessed on Linux by installing the appropriate software. Devices can be a bit of a mixed bag. The PlayStation 4 supports exFAT; the PlayStation 3 does not. The Xbox One supports it, but the Xbox 360 does not. May 22, 2011 Microsoft added exFat compatibily to XP with SP2 and SP3. Vista also has the support. For the Mac, I think they tried to implement it with either 10.6.5 or 10.6.6. For those versions, they could read and write to an exFat drive that was created by Windows, but if you created the exFat drive from the Mac, you couldn't read or write from Windows.
How to format external hard drive for Mac and Windows PC usage?
1. Format external hard drive with FAT32/exFAT file system.
Although FAT32/exFAT file system is developed by Microsoft, but macOS can also read/write external hard drive with FAT32/exFAT file system.
2. Format external hard drive with NTFS file system.
Although NTFS file system is developed by Microsoft, but macOS can only read NTFS external hard drive and cannot write NTFS external hard drive, you need to install extra NTFS for Mac app if you want to write NTFS external hard drive on Mac.
How to encrypt/password protect external hard drive for Mac and Windows PC usage?
https://valclever.weebly.com/microsoft-downloader-for-mac.html. As far as we know, there are many cross platform encryption solutions (such as TrueCrypt), but BitLocker is more secure than other drive encryption software. Although Microsoft just developed and released Bitlocker for Windows and there's no Mac implementation, but with the help of M3 Bitlocker Loader for Mac, Bitlocker encrypted external hard drive can be readable on Mac.
Exfat For Mac And Pc Windows 10
Exfat Or Fat32 For Mac
Tutorial to encrypt/password protect external hard drive with Bitlocker on Windows
Step 1: Insert external hard drive to a Windows computer.
Windows 10 Professional/Enterprise, Windows 8/8.1 Professional/Enterprise, Windows 7 Ultimate/Enterprise, Windows Vista Ultimate/Enterprise, Windows Server 2008/2012 are available for Bitlocker drive encryption. If you only have Windows 7/8/10 Home edition, please refer to: How to enable Bitlocker in Windows 7/8/10 Home edition?
Step 2: Format external hard drive into FAT32/NTFS/exFAT file system. If there is data in external hard drive, please go to step 3.
Step 3: Right click external hard drive in My Computer or This PC and select 'Turn on Bitlocker'.
Step 4: On the 'Choose How You Want To Unlock This Drive' window, choose 'Use A Password To Unlock This Drive' option and then click Next.
Step 5: On the 'How Do You Want To Store Your Recovery Key' window, click Save The Recovery Key To A File.
Step 6: In the 'Save BitLocker Recovery Key As' window, choose a storage location and then click Save.
Step 7: On the 'Are You Ready To Encrypt This Drive' window, click Start Encrypting.
Tutorial to encrypt/password protect external hard drive with Bitlocker on Mac
Step 1: Download and install M3 Bitlocker Loader for Mac.
Step 2: Insert an external hard drive into Mac computer.
Step 3: Launch M3 Bitlocker Loader for Mac.
Step 4: Click 'Encrypt' button in toolbar.
Step 5: Select the partition which you want to encrypt and click Encrypt. Overwolf facecheck for mac.
Step 6: Enter the password.
Format Usb For Mac And Pc Exfat
Step 7: Save the recovery key.
Step 8: Complete Bitlocker drive encryption.
Tutorial to read/write Bitlocker encrypted external hard drive on Mac
Step 1: Download, install and launch M3 Bitlocker Loader for Mac on your Mac computer.
Step 2: Insert a Bitlocker encrypted external hard drive and then click 'Unlock/Open' icon to continue.
Step 3: Enter the password (or 48-digit Bitlocker recovery key) to unlock Bitlocker encrypted external hard drive.
Step 4: After Bitlocker protected external hard drive is unlocked and mounted in read-write mode, we can copy, delete, transfer, edit files from Bitlocker encrypted external hard drive.
Video tutorial:
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