To format the drive in Windows, right-click it in the File Explorer window and select “Format.” Choose the “exFAT. Rather than use a Mac-formatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exFAT-formatted drives for moving data between Macs and PCs. exFAT convert, and then connect to my Windows and bring in all the media on it-connect to Macbook Pro and transfer all the media-once media is on my SSD on my Macbook, I can reformat my external HDD to by MAC OS Extended Journaled-Transfer all the media back to the external HDD and just save anymore multimedia directly to that hard drive. Now that you know which format to use, check out our guide on how to format your hard drive on. With exFAT, you can store files of any size, and use it with any computer made in the last 20 years. If you want to format your external hard drive to work with Mac and Windows computers, you should use exFAT. The Best Format for External Hard Drives. To this day, it remains the default file system for mechanical and hybrid hard drives, both while installing macOS and while formatting external drives. Mac OS Extended: Best for Mechanical Drives, Or Drives Used With Older macOS Versions Mac OS Extended was the default file system used by every Mac from 1998 until 2017, when APFS replaced it.