I formatted my drive on my friend’s Mac to APFS, but now my Windows PC won’t even recognize it to let me format it back to exFAT. How can I force Windows to wipe it?
APFS is the file system used by macOS, so Windows cannot use it directly. You may need to delete the APFS partition on your friend’s Mac and then reformat the drive to exFAT. This will allow the hard drive to work properly on Windows.
Okay, thank you for your answer. It seems I’ll have to ask my friend for help.
If Windows sees the drive then use diskpart and run the clean command. It removes the APFS partition table so you can create a new exFAT partition from scratch. If the drive does not show up in Disk Management or diskpart then the problem is likely the drive or its adapter not the APFS format.
Thanks for the suggestions. Just to update, the drive is completely fine—I went ahead and used my friend’s Mac to format it straight to exFAT. Windows picked it up instantly after that. Good to know about the diskpart clean command for next time, though!
If you only need to open the Mac drive and copy files onto your Windows PC, you can use these free or open-source tools:
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HFSExplorer: This tool lets you look inside older Mac drives (HFS+ / Mac OS Extended). Note that it requires Java to run, and it cannot write or save new data to the Mac drive.
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DiskInternals Linux Reader: This free program allows you to view and open modern Mac drives (APFS) at no cost.
(You may also use other third-party programs that can enable read/write support for the APFS drives on Windows.)
As mentioned above, ExFAT is the best format for compatibility between Windows and Mac.[ If you want to erase the APFS drive using the diskpart command on Windows, this blog will help you: How to Clear a USB Drive Completely with/without Formatting ]
