Does formatting an external hard drive erase the data?

Yes, repartitioning a HDD normally will cause loss of data. This is assuming that the new partition overlaps the existing partition w/your data on it. MBR partitions are limited to 2TB of storage.

However, the MBR only allows you to have four primary partitions at most and causes space waste for the 3TB drive. GPT is the abbreviation of GUID Partition Table, which was introduced as part of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) initiative. GPT provides a more flexible mechanism for partitioning disks than the older Master Boot Record (MBR) partitioning scheme that was common to PCs.

See the link below for more info.

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