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ex Fat formatted hard drive back up

MacBook with Big Sur doesn't even recognize the drive.


MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.3

Posted on May 9, 2021 4:22 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 9, 2021 5:35 PM

Big Sur should b able to recognize a drive formatted ExFAT. However, it can't be backed up with Time Machine or used for a Time Machine backup drive.


With the drive connected to your Mac launch Disk Utility and see if it recognizes the disk.


4 replies

May 10, 2021 7:06 AM in response to spaldingec

While is Disk Utilities >> View >> View ALL attached Drives and Choose the Upper mOst Name of This Specific Drive ie. WD or Samsung etc. Does it still appear as inactive ? If so, if you what to still use it in exFat - perhaps it needs to be reformatted as exFat with Master Boot Record. If you want it to be used only on macOS as a Time Machine Backup - it needs to reformatted as APFS and GUID Partition Map.

ex Fat formatted hard drive back up

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