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8 September 2023  Amanda J. Brook  Senior Product Manager
 

Summary
Learn how to format an SSD correctly to avoid compatibility issues. Discover the appropriate file system format and partition for optimal use on both Windows and Mac systems.



I. Instructions and suggestions before formatting

Before formatting a new solid-state drive, learn some precautions or suggestions in advance, which can help you format the solid-state drive more smoothly.
initialize SSD
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Hard disk partition scheme choose MBR or GPT

Before installing the system on a new hard disk uninitialized, it must be partitioned. The format of hard disk partition initialization includes MBR and GPT.
Before introducing the partition format, you need to understand what is a hard disk partition. Hard disk partition is to create multiple independent logical units on a physical hard disk, and these logical units are C drive, D drive, E drive, etc. Hard disk partitioning is like dividing a house into different functional areas (bedroom, kitchen, and living room). In different partitions, you can use it to place different things for better management. After partitioning the hard disk, you can use it to install the operating system, install applications, store data files, etc. Whether to use MBR or GPT format for hard disk partition mainly depends on the operating system and hard disk capacity.
MBR (full name Master Boot Record), known as the master boot record, is a traditional partition table. MBR was first proposed in IBM PC DOS 2.0 in 1983, so it has wider system compatibility than GPT. MBR Maximum support for 2.2TB disks, it cannot handle disks larger than 2.2TB capacity . Also, MBR only supports up to 4 primary partitions. If you need more partitions, you can only create “extended partitions” and create logical partitions in them.
GPT (full name Globally Unique Identifier Partition Table), also known as GUID partition table, is part of the UEFI specification. With the development of hardware, MBR can no longer meet the demand for larger hard disk capacity, and the GPT partition format came into being. It breaks through the limitation of 2.2T partition and can support a partition of 18EB at most. In the Windows operating system, up to 128 disk partitions are supported. In addition, in terms of security, the GPT partition table has also been improved in all aspects. Therefore, if you are a new platform user (Intel 6 series later/AMD 900 series later and A series), it is recommended that you use the GPT partition table.
TipsFor the hard disk partition scheme to choose MBR or GPT, you can refer to the following suggestions:

1. If your computer motherboard is an old-fashioned BIOS motherboard, it is recommended to use the MBR partition scheme, because both new and old systems are compatible with MBR.

2. If your computer supports the new UEFI motherboard, it is recommended to use the GPT partition scheme. (Note: All 32-bit Windows versions are not compatible with GPT partitions)

3. The MBR mode does not support large hard drives with a capacity exceeding 2TB. If your hard drive capacity is greater than 2TB, it is recommended to use the GPT partitioning scheme directly.

How to convert MBR to GPT?
You can directly change a disk from MBR to GPT partition format, as long as the disk contains no partitions or volumes. After the hard disk is converted to GPT, the operating system must be booted with UEFI. Make sure your computer and system support UEFI boot mode before doing this.
1. Use Windows interface conversion
The specific operation steps are as follows:
① First, backup or move important data on the MBR disk you want to convert to GPT disk.
② Right-click My Computer/This PC, click Management > Disk Management, and select Target Disk in Disk Management. If the disk contains partitions or volumes, right-click each and click Delete Partition or Delete Volume .
the reason why partition lost on SD card
③ Right-click the MBR disk you want to convert to a GPT disk, and then click Convert to GPT Disk.
convert the disk to GPT
2. Use MBR2GPT to convert MBR to GPT
You can run this tool by entering the Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) as well as the full Windows 10 Operating System (OS), without deleting data on the disk.
The specific operation steps are as follows:
① Click the Start search box or the Cortana search box, enter Command Prompt, then right-click Command Prompt, and select Run as administrator.
run as administrator
② Enter the conversion command in the opened command prompt window, where n represents the disk number.
● In Windows 10, enter “mbr2gpt /convert /disk:n /allowfullOS”
● In WinPE, type “mbr2gpt /convert /disk:n”
mbr2gpt
3. Use the DiskPart command to convert MBR to GPT
The specific operation steps are as follows:
① After opening the command prompt window, type “diskpart” and press Enter. If the disk does not contain any partitions, go to step 5.
② Then enter “list disk”, press Enter, and write down the disk number to be converted.
③ Enter “select disk 1″. “1″ represents the disk number, you can change it to the disk number you want to select, and press Enter.
④ Input “clean” and press Enter. After running the clean command, all partitions on the disk will be cleared.
⑤ Finally, enter “convert gpt”. Convert a blank disk with Master Boot Record (MBR) partition style to a basic disk with GUID Partition Table (GPT) partition style.
convert MBR to gpt

Choice of file system format

A computer’s file system is a method of storing and organizing computer data. A file system specifies rules for naming files and other permissions and attributes that make data easier to access and find. The file system also includes a format for specifying paths to find files through the directory structure.
Common disk file systems include: FAT, exFAT, NTFS, APFS, HFS, HFS+, ext2, ext3, ext4, ODS-5, btrfs, XFS, UFS, ZFS.
The Windows operating system supports three different file systems, which are NTFS , FAT32 and exFAT .

● NTFS It is a modern file system in the Windows system and is currently the most widely used. Most of the built-in hard disks in Windows computers now use the NTFS file system. NTFS can support hard drives below 16 EB, and the operating systems are in Windows 8 and Windows 10 versions.

● FAT32 It is an older file system, not as efficient as NTFS, but it has good compatibility with different system platforms. It is a universal format and any USB storage device will have this file system preinstalled.

● exFAT It is an alternative to the FAT32 file format. It can support a maximum file size of 1EB, which is very suitable for storing large-capacity files, and can also be used universally on Mac and Windows operating systems.

The file systems supported by Mac are: Apple File System (APFS), Mac OS Extended (HFS+), exFAT, MS-DOS (FAT) .

Apple File System (APFS) : APFS is Apple’s newest file system, first introduced for iOS devices in early 2017. The biggest improvement over Apple’s previous file system is speed. It only works with system volumes, hybrid drives, SSDs, and flash devices used with macOS.

Mac OS Extended (HFS+) : was the primary file system used for Mac system storage from 1998 until the release of APFS in 2017. HFS+ is an improved version of HFS that supports larger files and uses Unicode to name files or folders. The file system still works with HDDs and SSDs.

exFAT : exFAT is the best cross-platform option, it works on both Windows and Mac operating systems. Both macOS and Windows can read and write exFAT volumes, making them ideal for flash drives and external hard drives.

MS-DOS (FAT) : Apple also includes support for FAT32, which is labeled MS-DOS(FAT) in Disk Utility. Do not use the FAT32 file system unless you are using an old computer. Because it only works with drives used in Windows XP or earlier.

II. How to format and partition after adding/replacing SSD

Partition and format the new hard drive

The first thing to do after installing your hard drive is to partition it. You must partition and then format your hard drive before you can use it to store data.
The specific operation steps are as follows:
① Press the key combination Win and X on the keyboard and select Computer Management. Or right-click the This PC icon on the desktop and select Manage.
right click on the start button
② After opening Computer Management, click Disk Management. Then right-click on the newly installed SSD drive (marked as Not Initialized) and select Initialize Disk.
how to initialize disk on windows
③ Select the partition style MBR or GPT, and click OK. Choose GPT if you are installing a new hard drive that is 2 TB or larger. Select MBR if the MBR is less than 2 TB.
disk unknown not initialized 3
④ After the disk is initialized, the status of the disk will change to Online. Right-click on the unallocated space, select New Simple Volume, and proceed to the next step.
create new volume
⑤ In the New Simple Volume Wizard, set the partition size, and then click Next.
set the volume size in new simple volume wizard
⑥ Select the drive letter for the partition, and then click Next.
⑦ Select the file system as NTFS, select the default value in Allocation Unit Size, and set the partition name in Volume Label. Then select the Perform a quick format option, and click Next. Finally, click Finish.
format the volume with the settings
If you want to transfer the system data from the original mechanical hard drive to the SSD solid state drive, you can do it through Renee Becca , this software can provide the function of system migration.

Migrate the system on the mechanical hard disk to the SSD solid state drive

The newly installed SSD needs to be partitioned and 4K aligned, and then the data is cloned to the newly installed SSD. The whole operation process is very complicated. To save time, it is recommended that you useRenee Becca for system migration. This software can directly write the system partition and related startup information on the original mechanical hard disk to the solid-state hard disk. The operation steps of system migration are very simple, and the migration can be completed quickly without any professional knowledge. Renee Becca has high compatibility, supporting GPT and MBR disk formats and Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP operating systems.
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Support GPT and MBR Intelligently adapt to a partition format

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TipsFor desktop computers, after installing a solid state drive, you can generally perform hard drive cloning directly on the same device. For laptops, you need to clone the hard disk first, clone the data in the original mechanical hard disk to the solid-state hard disk, then remove the mechanical hard disk, and then install the solid-state hard disk.
The specific operation steps are as follows:
① After downloading and installing Renee Becca, open it, select the Clone function in the main interface of the software, and click the System Redeploy function.
clone windows 10 to ssd with Renee becca
② In the pop-up window, select the original location of the Windows system and the target SSD to be migrated to.
clone windows 10 to ssd with Renee becca
③ After the system migration is complete, restart the computer and modify the boot sequence in BIOS/UEFI to start from SSD.

III. How to modify BIOS/UEFI settings after replacing SSD

After replacing the SSD, if it needs to be used as a system disk, you also need to modify the relevant boot settings in BIOS/UEFI.

1. Change the boot sequence through BIOS/UEFI

After completing the partitioning and formatting of the SSD hard disk above, you may also need to set the solid-state hard disk as the first boot option in BIOS/UEFI to make the computer boot from the solid-state hard disk.
The specific operation steps are as follows:
① Start the computer, when the screen appears, press the shortcut key continuously to enter the BIOS/UEFI setting (usually F2, F8, F12, Del). According to the motherboards of different manufacturers, the shortcut keys to enter the BIOS will also be different, and there is no uniform standard for this.
② After entering BIOS/UEFI, use the arrow keys to select the Boot tab, and set the SSD as the first boot disk.
modify boot disk
③ Press F10 to save the settings, then restart the computer.

2. Change boot mode in BIOS/UEFI

There are two hard disk partition formats: MBR and GPT. The boot mode of MBR format should be Legacy; and the boot mode corresponding to GPT is UEFI. You also need to set the correct boot mode for the SSD to function properly.
The specific operation steps are as follows:
① Restart the computer, when the startup screen appears, press the corresponding shortcut key continuously until entering the BIOS/UEFI setting (usually F2, F8, F12, Del).
② Use the arrow keys to select the Boot tab, then select UEFI/BIOS Boot Mode, and press Enter. Then, choose the boot mode Legacy or UEFI according to your hard disk partition.
change boot mode
③ Press F10 to save the settings, then restart the computer.

IV. How to format the original SSD

Formatting the original installed SSD will be relatively simple, and you don’t need to re-select the partition format and so on. Before formatting the SSD, you need to make a data backup to avoid data loss. The formatting methods on Windows and Mac computers are described below.

Format the original solid state drive in Windows computer

1 , Format in Disk Management
The specific operation steps are as follows:
① Press the key combination Win and X on the keyboard and select Computer Management.
right click on the start button
② After entering the interface, click Disk Management on the left. Find the drive you want to format, right-click and select Format.
format raw disk
③ According to your own needs, select the appropriate File System and Allocation Unit, and finally click OK.
perform quick format disk management
2 , format in “My Computer”
The specific operation steps are as follows:
① Open My Computer or This PC, then right-click the partition to be formatted and select Format.
sd card formatted in this pc
② Then select File System, Allocation Unit Size according to personal needs, and finally click Start.
how to format the SD card or reformat a hard drive

Format the original solid state drive in the Mac computer

The specific operation steps are as follows:
① Open Disk Utility from Applications > Utilities on the Mac computer, and click Display > Show All Devices. In the left column, select the SSD to be formatted.
② Select the SSD hard disk, and click Erase in the upper menu bar. Then choose to confirm the name, format and scheme of the hard disk, and finally click the Erase button.
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③ After clearing, click Disk Utility in the upper left corner of the screen, and then click Exit Disk Utility.

V. How to recover SSD data due to wrong formatting

If you accidentally format the SSD without a backup, it will be very difficult to retrieve the data. However, you can recover it through professional data recovery software such as Renee Undeleter software. Renee Undeleter has three built-in data recovery solutions: file recovery, format recovery and partition recovery, which can meet different needs of users. At the same time, the interface of the software is concise and clear, even a novice can easily complete various operations. The software is available for both Windows and Mac operating systems.
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Supported devices SD card/USB/hard disk.

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The specific operation steps are as follows:
① Download and open Renee Undeleter, and select Whole Partition Scan.
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② Select the partition that was accidentally formatted, and click Next. Then enter the file scanning process, please wait patiently. The scan time is determined by the size of the partition, and the larger the partition, the longer the scan time.
Renee Undeleter Whole Partition Scan
③ After the scan is over, select the files you want to recover and click the Recover button.
preview and select the files to recover in renee undeleter