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ISODisk is a freeware ISO mounting software for all your manipulation with disk images files. With this tool, you will be able to mount disk image files quickly with the use of the internal virtual disks and thus view them from explorer as well as create ISO files easily. MacDrive 10 features an all-new Disk Management Window that displays any Mac disk mounted to your PC and gives you quick access to all of MacDrive’s features. Open and edit your Mac files from the new window or access them direct from Windows Explorer or your favorite software.

Summary :

If you connect a drive formatted in Mac to a Windows PC, you’ll be prompted to format it before use. That is to say, you are not allowed to view anything saved on it before formatting. But the question is: if you click Format disk, your data will be ruined. This post from MiniTool will introduce several useful ways to help you with that; please read carefully.

Can You Read Mac Drive on Windows

Many people doubt that whether they can read Mac drive on Windows. Some took action: they removed the drive from Mac and connected it to a Windows PC properly. But after connecting the Mac-formatted drive to Windows, a prompt window will pop up automatically on the screen, saying that they need to format the disk before use.

Don’t Format the Drive

You should click Cancel instead of Format disk when seeing this prompt. Why? That is simply because the formatting action will damage your data saved on that drive. Is there any other way to read a Mac-formatted drive on Windows? Sure, it is; some effective ways used by other users will be shown to you later on this page.

What Does Formatting a Hard Drive Do

Some users said they clicked on the Format disk button by mistake when seeing the prompt window mentioned above; they were wondering if there’s any way to help them recover a formatted hard drive. Luckily, the answer is yes.

What does disk formatting mean?

Formatting a hard disk/drive refers to delete all the file & folders save on a drive and set a certain file system for it. The formatting action is performed to prepare a data storage device (including hard disk drive, solid-state drive, USB flash drive, and SD card) for initial use. Two of the most obvious results of formatting a hard disk are: deleting data and changing file system.

Besides, there are also other benefits of disk formatting:

• Get more space on disk.
• Solve disk problems caused by soft failure.
• Improve disk/system performance greatly.
• And so on.

Do you know how to improve Windows 10 performance effectively?

It’s necessary to improve Windows 10 performance effectively since various problems will occur inevitably on a system that has been used for a long time.

Recover Formatted Hard Drive

The first and the most important thing to do after formatting a hard drive is to recover precious data from hard drive. MiniTool Power Data Recovery can be a good data recovery assistant: it’s clean, safe, and professional. Please free download the trial edition to experience this data recovery tool first before you decide to buy it; after that, double click on the setup program to finish installing the software on your Windows computer, on which the Mac hard drives are formatted.

Follow this guide to recover data from Mac formatted external hard drives:

1. Click Start now at the end of installation to launch MiniTool Power Data Recovery. You can also open it by double clicking on the software icon.
2. Wait for a few seconds until the disk loading process is finished automatically.
3. Select Devices from the top of the software pane.
4. Choose the formatted Mac drive under it.
5. Double click on the target drive directly or click on the Scan button.
6. The full scan will be started at once; more and more files and folders will be found during the scan. Please make sure the Mac hard drive is always connected to your computer.
7. Browse the found items carefully to decide which files are needed and which are not; add a checkmark into the square box in from of all the files you want to recover. If you can’t confirm, go to view the content before recovery by clicking Preview.
8. Click on the Save button in the lower right corner.
9. Select a storage path in the pop-up window to store the files waiting to be recovered; please make sure it has enough free space left. (You shouldn’t select the original Mac-formatted drive as the storage location in order to avoid secondary damage.)
10. Click on the OK button in the same window to confirm your selection.
11. Then, wait until all the files saved on Mac hard drive have been recovered successfully to appointed place. A prompt window will show up to inform you of the recovery result.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery is also a great tool for recovering formatted SD card or broken/corrupted USB stick.

After the data recovery process has been completed, you may transfer back the recovered files to the formatted disk as long as you can confirm that you’ve got back all the files you need.

What about Windows 10 read Mac drive? Please read the following sections.

Can a Mac external drive be read on a PC?

A lot of people are wondering whether they can read Mac drive on Windows 10 with freeware. In fact, there is both free and paid software to help people read Mac drive on PC easily, without formatting the disk. I’ll introduce some of the useful software you can use on Windows 10 to read files and folders from Mac-formatted drive.

Choice 1: HFSExplorer

HFSExplorer is completely free; it’s a basic application designed to help users read Mac-formatted hard disks and disk images. HFSExplorer gives support to various file systems: HFS (the Standard file system on Mac), HFS+ (the Extended file system on Mac OS), HFSX (the Extended Mac OS file system with case sensitive file names), etc.

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What Does HFSExplorer Allow You to Do

• Browse volumes on Mac by using a graphical file system browser.
• Check the volume related information.
• Extract files you need (copy files to Windows hard disk free).
• Mount & read disk images like .dmg and .sparsebundle.
• Create disk images from the volume on Mac.

The partition schemes including Master Boot Record, GUID Partition Table, and Apple Partition Map are supported by HFSExplorer.

Attention!

You need to install Java first if you don’t have it on your PC since it’s required (Sun's Java SE runtime environment version 5.0 or greater in which OpenJDK works fine).

HFSExplorer: Launch error

No Java runtime environment found. HFSExplorer cannot function without Java.

Press “OK” to open up http://www.java.com where you can download a Java runtime environment for your system.

You should just click OK as prompted to download & install proper runtime environment when seeing the window above.

How to Use HFSExplorer to Read Mac Hard Drive on Windows

HFSExplorer is a good tool to help you read your Mac-formatted drive on your Windows PC.

1. Connect the Mac-formatted drive to Windows 10 PC.
2. Run HFSExplorer as administrator.
3. Select File from the menu bar.
4. Choose Load file system from device
5. Click Autodetect to load the connected hard drive.
6. Choose the files & folders you want to view in the HFS+ drive.
7. Click Extract in the graphical window.
8. Select a folder as the destination.
9. Expand the folder to read Mac drive files on a Windows 10 PC.

Attention:

• HFS/HFS+/HSFX partitions can all be detected by using HFSExplorer.
• You can also Select a device or Specify device name manually in step 5.

If the connected external hard drive is not showing up on PC, you can’t detect it in step 5. You must make it appear in Windows first.

Is there any other hard drive reader for Windows? Of course, yes; please move on.

Choice 2: Apple HFS+ Drivers

Another way to access HFS + files in Windows 10 for free is installing Apple HFS + drivers.

Steps to Read Mac Drives on PC with Apple HFS + Drivers

First, you should make sure you don’t have Paragon or MacDrive (the hard drive readers I will talk about later) on your Windows computer. If you do, please remove them now.

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Second, you should download the correct Windows driver package to your local drive.

Third, you should configure your Windows as follow.

1. Go to the default download path (Downloads folder) to extract the downloaded zip file.
2. Find AppleHFS.sys and AppleMNT.sys files.
3. Copy them by pressing Ctrl + C (you can also do it by right clicking & choosing Copy).
4. Go to this path: C:WindowsSystem32drivers.
5. Copy them by pressing Ctrl + V (you can also right click on any blank area & choose Paste).
6. Navigate to the downloaded folder to find Add_AppleHFS.reg file.
7. Open the .reg file to bring up a Registry Editor prompt window.
8. Click on the Yes button and then click OK.
9. Restart your computer to make changes take effect.

Fourth, you should connect the Mac-formatted drive to your PC -> open File Explorer (also called Windows Explorer) -> locate that drive under This PC -> access files you want.

Choice 3: HFS+ for Windows

Though the Paragon HFS+ for Windows is a paid hard driver reader, you’ll love it after using.

What Can Paragon HFS+ for Windows Do for You

• The speed is fast and the performance is stable.
• The Mac file systems are integrated into Windows File Explorer.
• It provides full read and write access to Mac drives formatted with HFS, HFS +, and HFSX (just like other drives in Windows).
• It allows Windows programs to read from or write to the Mac-formatted drive on Windows.
• There are additional features that worth the cost.

How Much Does It Cost

The Paragon HFS+ for Windows is sold on the official website for $19.95 with a single seat license; $49.95 with one license worked on 3 PCs.

If you don’t want to spend money in reading Mac drive on Windows, you should download the trial edition; it is free for use for 10 days. You can access, copy files from or to the Mac drive during this period; it’s enough.

Choice 4: MacDrive

If your Mac drive is formatted with APFS (Apple File System), you won’t be able to read Mac hard drive on Windows because there are no free apps designed for it. But you have many choices of paid applications to access & edit Mac drive files on Windows; MacDrive is a popular one designed by Mediafour.

Merits of MacDrive

• It is used to help users read data from and write data to Mac disks from Windows directly.
• You can read both APFS and HFS+ drives in File Explorer.
• It allows you to create and partition Mac disks on your Windows.
• A graphical interface is offered for Mac-formatted drives verification, format, and repair.
• It’s a trusted solution which can date back to 1996.

The only drawback of MacDrive seems to be the selling price is higher than some similar tools. You need to pay $49.99 for the Standard version or $69.99 for the Pro version.

Is it worth the price? Yes, if you have such needs; it also includes unique features like support for Mac-formatted RAID disks.

Choice 5: Paragon APFS for Windows

Paragon also designed an APFS for Windows app for reading APFS Mac drive on Windows; it is considered as one of the main competitors of MacDrive.

Features of Paragon APFS for Windows

• It provides read and write access to Mac drives formatted with APFS.
• It also allows you to access and edit compressed and cloned files (you can only access the encrypted volumes without making any changes).
• It gives support to auto-mounting at start-up; the partition tools of MacDrive are not included in this app.

The biggest disadvantage of Paragon APFS for Windows when compared to MacDrive is the HFS+ support. The biggest advantage of Paragon APFS for Windows over MacDrive is the price – it costs only $49.95 for one license worked on 3 PCs.

Of course, there are many other tools available for you to read Mac drives on Windows (10/8/7, etc.).

Bonus Tip

You can format your Mac hard drive to exFAT, which supports both Windows and Mac OS X. In this way, you can get full read and write access to exFAT drives on Windows without any additional third-party software.

The only thing you need to worry is that the data on Mac drives will be removed. So you need to turn to MiniTool Power Data Recovery as mentioned in part 1 to recover the files you need after formatting.

How to format a hard drive? Basically, there are three ways.

• Right click on the drive in File Explorer -> choose Format.
• OpenDisk Management -> right click on the target drive -> choose Format.
• Format Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard – a professional disk manager.

Final Thoughts

Though you can’t access a Mac-formatted drive on a Windows computer directly, there are useful ways and tools to help you read Mac drive on Windows easily. Please just follow the steps mentioned above and choose the tool depending on your needs.

An ISO image, or ISO file is a copy of the data on an optical disc. All the DVD, CD or BD disc content can be duplicated into an ISO file precisely. Different from common video and audio files, files with the .iso extension are not common to be used. Is there any way to play ISO files on Windows or Mac?

• 1. Play ISO files with an ISO player.
• 2. Open ISO files by changing the ISO file extension name from '.iso' to '.zip'.
• 3. Mount ISO images to a virtual disc drive for playback.
• 4. Burn ISO files to DVD discs for ISO movie playback.
• 5. Convert ISO to MP4 and other playable formats.

Disk Mounting Software For Mac

The most time-saving and straightforward way is running an ISO file player. Once you install an ISO player on PC or Mac, you can watch ISO videos smoothly and directly. Here're top DVD ISO players you can try.

Part 1: Best Free Online ISO Players and Using Details

The ISO file format is not natively supported by Windows and Mac. Thus, you need to install third-party ISO player software to open ISO files successfully. Now, let's read and check the best ISO media player.

1. Free Blu-ray Player

If you want to play a movie in ISO format with excellent audiovisual experience, definitely Blu-ray Master Free Blu-ray Player is your first choice. You can play ISO files, DVD/Blu-ray discs and almost all video and audio formats for free. The best free ISO player is clean, safe and easy to use. You can select subtitle, video/audio track, screen size, visual effects and other details for ISO file playback.

• 1. Play any ISO image file on PC and Mac with no quality loss.
• 2. Wide support of playable video and audio formats, including 1080p HD videos.
• 3. Watch ISO videos on full screen, half screen, normal screen or double screen.
• 4. Support the more advanced kernel and newest playing technology for ISO video playback.
• 5. Have no adware, malware, virus, user tracking or bundled programs.

Free download and install the free ISO player for Windows or Mac.

Launch the ISO file player after the installation. You can drag and drop the ISO file to its main interface directly.

The ISO file will start to play automatically. You can pause, resume, stop, forward or backward the ISO video playback freely.

You can adjust ISO playback speed, video/audio track, subtitle, screen size, deinterlace, and audiovisual effects. All those features can be found from the top toolbar.

Part 2: Top 2~5 ISO Players for Playing ISO Files on Windows and Mac

2. VLC Media Player

OS Supported: Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android

ISO player download link: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

You can play ISO with VLC Player on multiplatform for free. VLC Media Player is a portable multimedia player. You can play digital files, VCDs, CDs, DVDs and ISO disk images directly. VLC contains most codecs with no extra codec packs needed. You can also install extensions to access more features. However, the VLC player playing DVD or ISO problem occurs occasionally.

3. MPC-HC

OS Supported: Windows

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ISO player download link: https://mpc-hc.org/

MPC-HC is short for Media Player Classic – Home Cinema. It is a lightweight and fast ISO player for Windows. You can also play most common video and audio file formats with powerful features. MPC-HC requires no installation. Thus, you can run the ISO video player from your USB flash drive or hard drive directly.

4. VSO Media Player

OS Supported: Windows

ISO player download link: https://www.vso-software.fr/products/vmp/vso-media-player.php

VSO Media Player can read DVD and AVCHD.ISO files with VSO Media Player. The free ISO player remembers your last playback position. Moreover, you can get multi-angle and multi-version support for Blu-ray/DVD playback. If you want to play a Blu-ray disk from your optical drive, you need to install decrypting software first.

5. MPV Player

OS Supported: Windows, Mac, Linux

ISO player download link: https://mpv.io/

MPV Player is an open source and cross-platform ISO player based on mplayer2 and MPlayer. You can get GPU video decoding acceleration and high-quality video output. The on screen controller can be triggered by mouse movement. You can also get content streaming, format conversion and other features from MPV Player.

Part 3: FAQs of Best ISO Player for Windows and Mac

Free Iso Mounting Software

1. What does ISO stand for?

An ISO file is the disk image of an optical disc. It contains everything of an optical disc. ISO is taken from the ISO 9660 file system used with CD-ROM media. You can create ISO file into the DVD disc and rip the DVD into the ISO file. For playing the ISO file, you should mount the ISO image on Windows computer, or get the ISO player professionally.

2. What Is the Best Free ISO Creator?

For getting a smooth playback of ISO file, Free Blu-ray Player will be the best one. It cannot only play the ISO files with the full controls like DVD playback, but also play all the common media files. Compatible with Windows and Mac computer, you just need to download the free ISO player to play the ISO files without downloading or installing other files.

3. Can you burn an ISO to a USB?

Yes, you can. For burning an ISO file to a USB drive, you will need the professional ISO to USB burner. ISO Burner is the software you can use. Step 1. Run ISO Burner on your computer. Click Burn. Step 2. Insert the USB drive into the computer, and add the ISO file into this software. Step 3. Checkmark Create A Bootable USB to select your USB drive. Step 4. Click Burn to start creating ISO into a USB drive.

4. What is the best free virtual ISO mounting software?

If you are running in Windows 10, the ISO mounting software will be pre-installed on your computer. There is no doubt that it is the best free virtual ISO mounting software. For Mac, the built-in ISO mounting software will be the best one for Mac users. Moreover, the mounting software on Mac can help you burn ISO to DVD on Mac directly.

Free Disk Mounting Software Mac Os

That's all for the review of top 5 ISO video players. You can choose any ISO player to play ISO files on Windows and Mac. Considering the compatibility, stability, safety and other important factors, Free Blu-ray Player does the best job. You can get excellent playing effects from the free ISO DVD player effortlessly.