How to format a flash drive for mac and pc compatibility. If you only use a mac computer, you can format your thumb drive so it can work on windows systems. Best usb format tools pen drive stick formatters for. From all above, you can have a general idea of fat32 and exfat file system. Volume format most manufacturers use the fat 32 or msdos fat volume format. How to format a usb flash drive on mac wondershare. Nov 01, 2011 format a flash drive for both mac os x and windows cult of mac. It allows to format a usb flash drive from sandisk, kingston, panasonic, lexar, samsung, sony, etc easily in all complex cases, for example, to format writeprotected usb flash drive, format usb drive back to the original size, format usb drive to fat32 or ntfs, and more. And it can format seagate drive as fat32 without the limitation of. How to create macos high sierra bootable usb on windows. Hi there, i have a usb flash drive which was formatted for a mac. How to choose the best format for usb drive on windowsmaclinux.
Most external hard drives and usb drives are compatible for use on mac computers as long as you format the devices for use with mac os x. Now, you can follow these two solutions to format any hard drive, flash drive, usb drive, ssd or any other external storage drive so as to make them work on your mac now. Basically, to choose the best format for usb flash drive. How to format internal andor external drive to work properly on mac and windows computers. Install windows from a usb flash drive microsoft docs. The quickest way is to search on spotlight and click. Find out how to format an external drive or usb disk making the drive work with both windows pc and mac can read and write. Install windows on your older mac using boot camp apple support. Gpt is a newer format supporting larger capacities, but isnt compatible with. Jul 05, 2017 in the screenshot below, the drive is formatted with the exfat file system. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Usb drive format tool is a tiny freeware utility designed for formatting any usb storage devices usb flash drive, usb stick, usb pen drive, usb portable drive, and sdcard in fat, fat32, exfat.
This process may take a long time to complete you can click the stop button to interrupt this process. Choose the exfat file system in the list and click start. Install windows on your older mac using boot camp apple. Under the devices and drivers section, rightclick the flash drive and.
If you havent already plugged in your usb flash drive in to your mac. Insert the flash drive or hard drive you want to format for windows compatibility. If your copy of windows came on a usb flash drive, or you have a windows product key and no installation disc, download a windows 10 disk image from microsoft. It comes with two types of file format systems, namely, fat32 and ntfs. Format usb flash drives to work with both mac and windows. Disk drill, a premium data recovery solution for mac os x with support for all popular file formats and common storage devices, is here to help you recover deleted files from usb flash drive. At the bottom of the main window are storage device details, including disk description, connection. The first format, fat32, is fully compatible with mac os x. How to format a drive on a mac if you want to use a different file system on your usb drive, youll need to format it.
How to format flash drive on win7 when it was formatted on a mac. Yes, connecting an external hard drive or usb flash key to a mac will generally read and work fine as is because the mac can easily read other filesystem formats, including windows msdos, fat, fat32, exfat, and ntfs formats, but unless you intend on using the drive between a windows and mac machine, formatting it to be entirely mac compatible filesystem is highly recommended, and. How to format flash drive on win7 when it was formatted on. The other formats microsofts ntfs and apples mac os extended dont work well on the other operating system. Guidecreating a os x installeriatkos ml2from windows only. Disk utility application in macos is the best option to format a flash drive on macos. How to format a usb drive for mac and pc compatibility. Sep 19, 2011 the overwhelming majority of usb flash drives you buy are going to come in one of two formats.
How to format a flash drive for mac and pc compatibility in macos high sierra. This guide is for those who dont have access to a mac and for some reasons cannot install the. Formatting a disk or volume erases all the files on it. Fat32 and exfat can be compatible with mac and windows and you can choose one after realizing their respective merits and defects based on your demands. Mar 12, 2020 this brings us to the end of this extensive guide on how to format a write protected pen drive.
Click ok to the format warning and wait until the process is complete. Go to the applications folder on your macs hard drive, then. Feb 05, 2020 how to run windows 10 from a usb drive. Dec 29, 2015 how to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. At the create bootable usb drive for windows installation step, choose the windows iso image and the usb drive, then click continue. All usb drive, including sd memory card, set fat32 as the default system. You can format a hard drive or usb flash disk specifically so that it will be compatible with both mac os x and windows pc computers.
Download hp usb disk storage format tool on mac, install it on emulated windows. Examples of the increased compatibility include boot camp software for running windows on a mac and the microsoft office productivity suite. Technician pc windows pc that youll use to format the usb flash drive. Feb 17, 2020 creating a windows 10 boot drive is easy peasy. Unfortunately, its harder to recover data on a flash drive with this kind of damage. This is the easiest way and simply requires you to plug in your usb drive, open the windows file explorer and right click your drive to view a number of actions that you can perform. I selected the flash drive by the way its a 2 gb flashdrive and i used the security option 35 pass errase. How to format a usb flash drive on windows 10 windows. This wikihow teaches you how to change your flash drives default file format. In this article, we will introduce 5 disk formatting tools for windows and mac to help you securely format hard drive usb flash drive or memory card on a pc or a mac. Use microsofts media creation tool to ensure you have a windows 10 boot drive handy should you ever run into issues with your current pc. Jul 22, 2019 how to format a flash drive to work on os x and windows. Meanwhile, the fat32 format has one major disadvantage. May 29, 2018 if you want to make your drive compatible with mac and windows, you need to format it with a common file system for mac and windows.
How to format a flash drive for mac and pc compatibility in macos. Apr 30, 2016 now, lets take a look at some ways you can format your usb drive on windows 10. Select your external hard drive or usb flash drive from the list on the left. Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility. Install the parallels desktop emulator on your mac os. It can support various file systems including ntfs, fat32,exfat, ext2, ext3 etc. Although we know its limitation of 4gb file size only. Its exactly the same procedure if you need to reformat a flash drive on a mac.
Oct 16, 2019 usb flash drive is much easier to format. I cant transfer big files to usb with over 4 gb in size. Click the erase button and the drive will start formatting. To format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format.
As a matter of fact, in windows os for example, there are many accessible ways for users to format a disk. Hp usb disk storage format tool is one of the best free usb flash drive formatter software for windows. The nt file system ntfs is the file system that modern windows versions use by default. Format usb flash drives to work with both mac and windows 7 by jack scicluna photography, llc guest writer. Mar 15, 2018 rather than use a macformatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exfatformatted drives for moving data between macs and pcs.
Now you can share files between a mac and windows computer. If installing windows on your mac for the first time, this must be a full version of windows, not an upgrade. Format usb or external hard drive for mac using mac disk utility format usb or external hard drive for mac on windows pc using thirdparty usb format tool. How to format a large capacity usb flash drive, fat32, windows. Format usb flash drives to work with both mac and windows 7. Learn how to format your usb flash drive or usb external drive so you can use it on both mac os x and windows computers. The file allocation table 32 fat32 was the standard windows file system before ntfs. Sep 20, 2016 learn how to format your usb flash drive or usb external drive so you can use it on both mac os x and windows computers. Some flash drives have to be formatted first before you can store files on them. Windows formatting tool can not always format the usb flash drive correctly. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and.
Why need to format external hard drive for mac and pc. In general, windows builtin tools disk management and diskpart can format drive to exfat easily. In the application windows look for the utilities folder. The process for formatting a drive is different depending on the system youre using.
Install windows 10 on your mac with boot camp assistant. Usb flash drive format tool free download and software. If you want to make your drive compatible with mac and windows, you need to format it with a common file system for mac and windows. The latest trend with computers is not including a cddvd drive. Formatting your flash drive will remove all files or folders on the drive, so make sure you back up your files before formatting your drive. If you have an old flash drive or one that was formatted to work with windows or another operating system, you can still format your flash drive to work on a mac. Guide creating os x usb installer using a windows pc.
The overwhelming majority of usb flash drives you buy are going to come in one of two formats. Usb flash drive format tool pro fdmlib for windows. Format external hard drive or usb drive for mac easeus. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. However, for this you need to follow the next steps. Here are some of the ways how a usb format can help you format your usb drive. Rightclick your flash drive and then select format. Again, formatting a drive will erase it completely, so make sure you have everything backed up that you want to keep. This drive will be formatted, so make sure it doesnt have any important files on it.
The instructions below are for windows 10, but other versions of windows from windows 7 and up can also format an external drive as exfat for use with mac as well. So, now go to your usb flash drive and check the macos high sierra files. How to format a usb drive for mac and pc compatibility youtube. In this article, we are taking a closer look at the disk utility, which comes with all recent versions of the mac os x operating system and how you can use it to format usb drive.
I put it in my win 7 pro machine to format it for win7. Apfs is optimized for ssd solid state drive such as flash drives, so if you reformat a flash drive on a mac, you should definitely choose apfs unless you plan to use it with a prehigh sierra mac, of course. Usb flash drive format tool pro usb drive format tool can be used to format usb storage devices such as flash drives, portable hard disks, and sd cards in fat, fat32, exfat, and ntfs file systems. But if it is ntfs, format your flash drive to make it completely compatible with macos. To put it simply, if you want to share external hard drive between mac and pc, you need to format an external hard drive for mac and pc. This format can be used for almost all operating system, such as windows, mac, linux, and android. Lets see how to format usb drive on a windows pc first. This brings us to the end of this extensive guide on how to format a write protected pen drive. Therefore, now your usb drive is ready to boot macos high sierra and you can install macos high sierra from your usb flash drive. Now you can try the following guide to format your usb drive in simple steps. The first format, fat32, is fully compatible with mac os x, though with some drawbacks. If you want to use a different file system on your usb drive, youll need to format it. It is time to learn how to format your external hard drive or other external drives to a common file system for mac and windows. Usb drives can be formatted on your mac using the disk utility application.
Loading and running windows 10 from a usb drive is a handy option when youre using a computer saddled with an older version of windows. Aug 16, 2019 in this guide, we show you virtually every method to format a usb flash drive and quickly erase its contents or fix data corruption and other issues using windows 10s builtin tools. External data storage devices such as usb flash drives, external hard disk drives hdds, and solid state drives ssds provide one of the easiest ways to transfer files between separate computers without accessing the. This article will show you how to choose the best format for usb drive on windows mac linux and format usb for mac and windows. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac. If the drive comes formatted in ntfs, which is the default file system for windows, youre going to want to reformat the drive because mac os x. Means if one want to transfer movie or any stuff greater than 4gb it cant be done in this format. In disk utility on your mac, you can format an external disk for a windows computer. Moving files from macformatted external hard drive to pc. You will learn the easiest way to format drive on mac and windows as exfat.
It is able to format seagate hard drive or usb flash drive as exfat file system easily and effectively in windows 1087, xp and vista. We all make mistakes, and you wouldnt be the first person in the world to accidentally format a usb flash drive. This application can be used to create bootable usb drives using mddos or windows operating system installer disk. Im sure that after following this step by step tutorial on the same, you would certainly be able to format a write protected usb drive on both mac and windows systems. Under file system box, select exfat for this drive. The drive is probably now formatted for a mac only file system. Dec 17, 2018 if your flash drives file system is msdos or exfat you can use it as it is without further formatting. Standard formatting is not solution at all if a file table information on the storage device has been corrupted. Formatting your flash drive will typically remove any files or folders on the drive, so make sure you back up your files before. To format a usb flash drive using file explorer, use these steps. How to format seagate drive for mac and pc quickly and.
Windows will format the drive as exfat and youll be able to use the drive on both windows and mac. Usb drives have limited space and it becomes essential to format it for getting free space. If you want to format a hard drive or usb flash drive on your computer, disk formatting tool is the best choice. How to format a flash drive on macos erase usb macmetric. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. The hp usb format tool allows you to format the usb flash drive in the mac os x. Not every flash drive out there can be used with a mac computer right out of the box. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Double click on the finder icon that is located in the dock. In addition, quick format and enable compression options are also available to perform formatting on usb flash drive.
It recognizes the drive, installs the drivers, yet never shows up as an active. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. Format a flash drive for both mac os x and windows cult of mac. To format usb drive in windows operating system, it is recommended to use the free usb formatter minitool partition wizard free edition. Just be sure to use your correct flash drive letter to check, i plug in the usb flash drive, i see its identified as d. You can use this format if you share the drive between mac os x and windows computers and have no files larger than 4gb. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows.
No matter its a newly bought flash drive or a used one, you can directly use a capable usb format tool to format the usb drive to fat32 or ntfs. See this stepbystep tutorial for how to format your usb drive for mac machine macos and pc windows 10. When i try to use it it says to format and then it will try again and will say it could not complete the format. To share a usb drive between a mac and a windows pc, there are two disk formats to choose from. How to format usb drives on windows 10 make tech easier. Macs and pcs use different file systems, which can make it tricky to put data from your mac on a flash or hard drive and give it to a windows. To format a hard drive for compatibility of both mac and windows you can use fat32 format which has both readwrite capability on winmac respectively. So if you think you might need to plug the usb drive into a mac running an older version of macos, format it as mac os extended. How to format usb flash drive on mac stepbystep tutorial. It is required to format the usb drive to mac os file system to make it fully compatible with the platform.
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