Although you can still get it back, but its much harder after formatting.

Most external drives come preformatted in NTFS so that they can be used easily with Windows.

Hdd Format For Windows Software Like NTFS

However, NTFS drives are read only in MAC, but you can get write access by using software like NTFS-3g.

And to support NTFS on Android use Stick mount or Paragon NTFS, HFS and exFAT.

If you format your external hard drive to HFS, you can use it on MAC and Linux (by removing journaling).

However, to use it on Windows you can HFS explorer (read only).

To read an ext4 drive on Windows, you can Ext2Read and OSXfuse for MAC.

However, I have not really use this format much, so we just skip it.

Although it lacks all modern features and comes with 4 GB limit for single file size.

However being a windows propriety file system, it does not play well in open source environment.

But unlike FAT32, it does not have 4GB limit for single file size.

Plug in your external HDD to the USB port of your computer then go to my computer find your external drive right-click it and select format.

However for external HDD you wont see the FAT32 (windows dont suggest fat32 for bigger drives) However to get other format option you can use third-party software.

Select your external HDD on the left side and then select partition option.

A new window will open, here select Master Boot Record and then click Ok.

Make sure the size is set to an entire volume of your external drive.

Hdd Format For Windows Install A GUI

So, you will have ti install a GUI tool called GParted and then plug in your external drive in the computer.

Click on the top right side, select the volume you want to format.

To see the final step, I suggest you check out this howtogeek article.

The main function of this application is to mount NTFS or HFS formatted HDD on Android, but there is another useful option hidden under settings i.e.

Mac Hdd Format For Windows