Format a hard drive to work with Windows

I have a external hard drive formatted to Mac OS (journaled).

I no longer have a Mac, so I would like to format the hard drive to exFat or fat32 from my Windows computer.

My computer detects the drive but it does not show up in File Explorer.

It does not give me the option to format it in Devices and Printers in the Control Panel.

Answer

You use Window's Disk Management console to modify your partitions. Once you have removed the existing partition(s) from the drive, create new ones that Windows recognizes and then format them.

How to do this is available in Microsoft's online help:

1. Open Computer Management by clicking the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Security, clicking Administrative Tools, and then double-clicking Computer Management.‌ If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the
   password or provide confirmation.




2. In the left pane, under Storage, click Disk Management.

Alternatively, just run diskmgmt.msc.