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If you are using multiple OSes and wish to transfer files from one computer to another via an external hard disk, you will want to format the hard disk to exFAT format since it is widely supported by most OS and doesn’t come with the 4GB per file restriction. We have previously shown you how you can mount and access exFAT partition in Ubuntu. Here is how you can format it to exFAT filesystem in Ubuntu.

Assuming that you have already installed the fuse-exfat and exfat-utils packages that are necessary to access exFAT in Linux:

1. Plug in your external hard disk. Open a terminal and type

sudo

fdisk

-l

This will list down all the hard disks and partitions in your computer. Record down the id that correspond to the partition in your external hard disk.

2. Next, run the command:

sudo

mkfs.exfat

-n

LABEL

dev

sdXn

Replace “LABEL” with the label for your external hard disk and “/dev/sdXn” with the partition id that you recorded earlier.

That’s it. Optionally, you can run a “fsck” check to make sure the formatting is done properly.

Damien

Damien Oh started writing tech articles since 2007 and has over 10 years of experience in the tech industry. He is proficient in Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and iOS, and worked as a part time WordPress Developer. He is currently the owner and Editor-in-Chief of Make Tech Easier.

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How To Format A Hard Drive Or Disk In Windows 11/10

“Format” as a word in computers is very popular, and a well-known word among computer users. We all have done that, especially with USB drives. That said, what people are sometimes afraid of is when it comes to formatting the hard disk and partitions. After all, we have data on them, and we do not want to lose them. In this post, we will share how to format a Hard Drive or Disk. We will also look into types of Format, and tools that can help you delete files so they cannot be recovered.

Types of File System How to format a Hard Drive or Disk

These are some of the best ways to format a hard drive or disk. Make sure to take a backup before formatting anything. Once the formatting is complete, then it cannot be recovered easily.

Using File Explorer

Disk Management Tool

Diskpart

Disk Management Software (OEM and Third-Party)

Connect to another computer.

If you wish to format part of a hard drive or hard disk, then you can use the first two methods, but if you want to format a complete drive, you can use any of the last two methods.

1] Using File Explorer

Windows 11/10 now offers NTFS for hard disk, but for external storage, you should other options such as exFAT and FAT 32. The first one is for Linux.

2] Disk Management Tool

Type Disk management in the start menu, and then select “Create and format hard disk partitions” listing. The disk management window will display a list of connected storage devices and partitions.

Select Format, and it will open the options window.

Once the process is complete, the drive will be ready to use. You can do it for any number of partitions except for the primary drive where Windows is installed.

3] Diskpart Tool

Diskpart is a built-in system tool offered by Windows, which can easily format drives, but it has to be used with great care as there is no user interface. Open Run prompt (Win +R) and type cmd. Then use Shift + Enter to launch a command prompt with admin privileges. Execute the command in the same order as below.

Diskpart list disk select disk # format fs=ntfs quick label=backup exit

Where # is the partition number, the last command will format the partition, and then name the label as “backup.”

4] Disk Management Software (OEM and Third-Party)

Most of the OEMs offer software for HDD and SSD. These software offer options to format drives along with other tools. For example, I am using a Samsung SSD tool that comes with Samsung Magician software. The software allows you to format the complete drive, and also create a bootable USB drive if you wish to reinstall Windows after the formatting is complete.

You can try other free disk & partition management software that can offer a better user interface and clear option. However, make sure to understand what you do with the software.

5] Connect to another computer

Probably the best way to completely format a hard drive is by using another computer. Once you connect, use the disk management tool and first delete all partitions of your drive, and then if you need to recreate the partitions. If you do not create partitions, Windows Setup can help you do that when you install it.

Read: How to use Mac-formatted HFS+ Drive on Windows computer

How to format the System Drive?

If you need to format the primary drive, then read our guide on how to format a computer. You can do it using Windows 10 Reset PC option or using a bootable USB drive and even through third-party software.

So these were the methods you can use to format the hard disk or hard drive. I hope the post was easy to follow, and you make sure to perform this carefully, especially after you take a backup.

How To Format External Hard Drive Or Usb Drive Using Windows Powershell

If you have an external hard drive or USB drive that you cannot format from File Explorer, you can check out this guide. It will help you to format the external hard drive or USB drive using Windows PowerShell. As you might already know that Windows PowerShell is an in-built tool, you do not need to install any third-party software.

Windows users can easily format an internal hard drive, external HDD or SSD, USB drive, etc. with the help of the in-built option. This option can be found in This PC or My Computer. Sometimes, this specific functionality can be a mess because of the corrupted hard drive or file, and you may not be able to format the drive. At such a moment, you have some other options. For example, you can use the Disk Management panel, Command Prompt, etc. to get the job done. Likewise, you can use Windows PowerShell to delete and create partitions, change the File system, etc. of your USB drive or hard drive.

Read: How to delete or format C drive using Command Prompt.

What can you do using Windows PowerShell?

You can change the following things of an external hard drive or USB drive-

Format the hard drive

Change File system

Create partition

Change drive letter

Format External Hard Drive using PowerShell

To format the external hard drive or USB drive using Windows PowerShell, follow these steps-

Plugin the USB or external hard drive to your computer

Open Windows PowerShell with admin privilege

Recognize the drive that you want to delete

Enter the command.

First, you need to plug in your external hard drive or pen drive so that your computer can do the job. After that, you need to open the Windows PowerShell with administrator privilege. For that, press Win+X, and select Windows PowerShell (Admin).

Now you need to identify the disk that you want to format. For that, enter the following command-

Get-Disk

You should find the name of your external hard drive in the Friendly Name column. Also, you need to note down the number of the hard disk.

To initiate the process, enter this command-

Clear-Disk -Number 2 -RemoveData

You need to replace the number 2 with the original number that is assigned to your drive. In this example, we want to format the Sony Storage Media (check the above screenshot), which is carrying the number 2. It might be different if your external hard drive is showing a different number.

Now you should get a confirmation message. Type Y and hit the Enter button.

It should take a couple of seconds to complete the process. Now, you need to enter the following command-

New-Partition -DiskNumber 2 -UseMaximumSize -IsActive -DriveLetter Z

It will help you create a partition. Also, there are two things you should know about this command. First, the number 2 represents the drive that you formatted earlier. Second, the Z represents the drive letter that will be assigned to the external hard drive or USB drive.

After entering that command, a popup will appear to format your disk. You can use that popup window option, or you can use the following command-

Format-Volume -DriveLetter Z -FileSystem FAT32 -NewFileSystemLabel USB

Here is one crucial thing that you should know. If you want to format the drive in the FAT32 file system, you need to choose that in the command. However, if you’re going to use the NTFS file system, the same command should look like this-

Format-Volume -DriveLetter Z -FileSystem NTFS -NewFileSystemLabel USB

If you choose NTFS, it might take a couple of more seconds than FAT32.

After entering the last command, you will be able to use the external hard drive or USB drive regularly.

You can format USB Pen Drive using Command Prompt as well.

How To Access Exfat File System In Ubuntu

Linux (or Ubuntu, in particular) comes with support for many file systems. If you plug in your USB drive, chances are your Linux system will recognize it immediately and mount it in your file manager. However, if your external hard disk is in the exFAT format, your system won’t be able to detect it since it doesn’t support it natively. Here is how you can access, with read and write permission, to an exFAT file system in Ubuntu.

Installation

The Ubuntu repository does not come with any package that supports exFAT. To enable access to exFAT, we need to install from a third-party PPA.

In your terminal,

sudo

add-apt-repository ppa:relan

exfat

sudo

apt-get update

sudo

apt-get install

fuse fuse-exfat exfat-utils Usage

Once you have installed the exfat-utils packages, whenever you plug in your exFAT external drive. It will be detected by the system and automount. It comes with read/write access so you can copy to and paste from the drive.

In the event that your system doesn’t automount the external drive, here is what you can do to mount it manually:

sudo

mkdir

media

exfat

sudo

mount

-t

exfat

dev

sdb1

media

exfat

Replace the “/dev/sdb1” with the exact file path to your external hard drive.

To unmount the exFAT external drive:

sudo

umount

media

exfat Why isnt’t exFAT supported natively in Linux?

The main reason why exFAT is not supported natively in Linux is because exFAT is developed by Microsoft and it comes with a restrictive license, which doesn’t allow free or open-source operating system to implement it natively.

Even though the exfat-utils package allows you to read/write to a exFAT file system, you can’t format your external hard disk to exFAT format yet. To format to exFAT file system, the only (and easiest) way now is via Windows. If you are running a Windows virtual machine, you can do so in the VM as well.

Damien

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How To Recover Hard Disk Space On Mac With Omnidisksweeper

Running out of disk space is no fun and Mac users with smaller drives need to be particularly aware of available disk space. The Mac OS X Finder Search feature can be used to find large files but if you’re really serious about managing disk space and tracking down unnecessary large files and folders, you should use a free tool called OmniDiskSweeper.

OmniDiskSweeper is an excellent application for Mac OS X that shows everything on a hard disk in descending order by size, each directory can then be drilled down into further to quickly locate the largest files, and the offending folders or files can be managed and deleted directly from the app.

How to Locate Large Files & Folders on Mac with OmniDiskSweeper to Help Recover Hard Disk Space

Finding the large files and folders with OmniDiskSweeper is quick and painless, here’s all you need to do:

Download OmniDiskSweeper (free), copy it to your /Applications/ folder, and launch the app

Important: OmniDiskSweeper is intended for users who are knowledgable about their Mac file system. If you don’t absolutely know what a file or directory is and if it’s necessary or not, do not delete it! There is no going back, and if you accidentally delete important system files or folders you may find yourself having to recover from a backup or reinstalling Mac OS X. You’ve been warned. Sloppy use of tools like OmniDiskSweeper can lead to permanent data loss.

Exactly what can be removed is going to vary per user and per drive and per Mac, but everyone will certainly find items that are no longer necessary to keep around. For example, sweeping my drive with OmniDiskSweeper I discovered and removed the following items:

The user ~/Library/Application Support/ directory contained 1GB of files for apps that are no longer used

Spotify Caches were taking up 1GB of disk space, removing that and deleting unnecessary user caches recovered 2GB of disk space immediately

Over 1GB of unused Mac OS X Voices were found and removed

900MB of unused and long forgotten Applications were uninstalled freeing up space

You can often find very large files or folders you may have long forgotten about by using tools like OmniDiskSweeper, and of course things like caches and temp files will be shown too, along with personal files and data. It is critical you understand exactly what you see and what its purpose is, because deleting the wrong thing could break Mac OS system software or lead to the unintended loss of critical data or personal files.

Ultimately how much all this matters and how much disk space you need to reclaim is going to depend on the capacity of a Mac hard drive. I use a MacBook Air 11″ with only a 64GB SSD making each 1GB of unnecessary files or folders significant, and I was able to quickly recover about 12% of total disk capacity just by looking through OmniDiskSweeper and removing what I know isn’t needed.

Consider adding OmniDiskSweeper to part of a general Mac maintenance routine, even those with very large hard drives will find it to be an effective method of keeping a file system under control.

How To Connect To A Vpn In Ubuntu

There are many reasons why you need to connect to a VPN. Maybe you need to connect to your office network so you can access some confidential files from your Home PC, or that you need an American IP to watch Hulu and listen to Pandora. Whatever the reason is, you can easily configure a VPN connection in Ubuntu and no extra installation is required.

5. Give this VPN connection a name and enter the connection detail.

Done.

Damien

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