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. That should allow you to create a partition on the drive and set the partition scheme. So, whether you wish to format the internal hard drive, external drive, or a usb flash drive, the procedure is the same for all. I mounted the usb drive on mac, ran diskutililty and erased using msdos. However, you can format the drive to work with both windows and mac by using the exfat filesystem. Dont click the format disk button or windows will erase the contents of the driveclick cancel. In the file system list box, choose exfat, type in a volume label.
How to format internal andor external drive to work properly on mac and windows computers. Click on the usb drive in the sidebar in disk utility. If you want to use the drive between a windows and mac machine, you can format it to fat32. Format a mac flash drive to work with windows computers.
Like i said, if you want to use the device for both. You can select to use a fat, fat32, exfat, ntfs, or refs file system when formatting. Jan 09, 2020 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 on mac. Youll need to reformat your usb flash drives or external drives on your mac. Disk utility application in macos is the best option to format a flash drive on macos.
How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. Need to share really big files with windows clients or users. Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility. Dec 29, 2015 windows uses ntfs and mac os uses hfs and theyre incompatible with each other. Mar 03, 2020 as you can see, exfat is the only file system that works with all versions of windows and macos and does not have any max filesize or partitionsize limits. In this article, we will introduce 5 disk formatting tools for windows and mac to help you securely format hard driveusb flash drive or memory card on a pc or a mac. Jan 15, 2019 better still, it can be read from and written to on any mac running mac os x snow leopard or later and on windows. If you want to format a hard drive or usb flash drive on your computer, disk formatting tool is the best choice.
File system formats available in disk utility on mac. If i insert the usb drive on a windows machine, windows indicates that i need to format the drive before i can use it. But luckily, there are file systems well supported by both mac and windows pc, and they are fat32 it might be called msdos on mac and exfat. If your flash drives file system is msdos or exfat you can use it as it is without further formatting.
Windows uses ntfs and mac os uses hfs and theyre incompatible with each other. How to format a usb drive for mac and pc compatibility youtube. The quickest way is to search on spotlight and click. Therefore, its perfect for a usb flash drive or external disk, especially when you need to save files more than 4gb in size. Be careful using these instructions to ensure you are formatting the correct disk. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac.
Once the disk utility is opened, select your flash drive from the sidebar and click the erase button. Jul 16, 2017 heres how to format a new flash drive thumb driveusb stick on a mac for both pc and mac. Go to the applications folder on your macs hard drive, then go to the utilities folder, and launch disk utility. Sharing a hardflash drive across windows, os x, and linux.
Format is the process of preparing a data storage device such as a hard disk drive, solidstate drive, or usb flash drive for initial use to accept windows files. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac. From all above, you can have a general idea of fat32 and exfat file system. Now that the flash drive not recognized problem is solved on your windows or mac computer, make sure you had backup all important document in the flash drive. How to format a flash drive for mac and pc compatibility in macos high sierra. This is to ensure that you will be able to access the files stored in the flash drive should it happens again. How to format a flash drive to work on os x and windows. Then select the partition on the left hand side and format it using the filesystem of your choice. 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 internet. 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.
How to format flash drive on win7 when it was formatted on. Use file explorer to copy and paste the entire contents of the windows product dvd or iso to the usb flash drive. Follow these instructions to partition flash drive on mac. Rightclick your flash drive and then select format. How to format an external disk or a flash drive for macos sierra select the guid partition map if you are creating a bootable install disk or going to use with time machine backup. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. How to format a usb flash drive on windows 10 windows central. For apple mac users, the easier way to format usb flash drive to fat32 is using the disk utility. In the essay, we will talk about how to format usb flash drive on windows and on mac os and how to recover usb data. Formatting cruzer glide for windows and mac sandisk forums. To share a usb drive between a mac and a windows pc, there are two disk formats to choose from. This is strange because windows does not apply the same limitation to flash drives.
Format usb flash drives to work with both mac and windows. The extended file system ext was the first file system created specifically for linux. Dec 17, 2018 if your flash drives file system is msdos or exfat you can use it as it is without further formatting. This article will teach you how to format the usb flash drive so both mac s and pcs can read them. How to format a hard drive for mac internal, external or flash. Click ok to the format warning and wait until the process is complete. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. How to format a flash drive for mac and pc compatibility in macos. But if it is ntfs, format your flash drive to make it completely compatible with macos. I use the exfat format so you can go between the two of them.
In the main interface, right click the partition on that need. It recognizes the drive, installs the drivers, yet never shows up. Best 7 free disk format tools for windows flash drive repair. How to format an external disk or a flash drive for mac. Select the upper level of the drive you would like to format and click the erase button. Whatever the reason, windows 10 ships with several tools to format virtually any kind of storage, including usb flash drives, using file explorer, disk management, command prompt, and powershell. When you connect a macformatted drive to windows, youll be informed that you need to format the disk in drive x. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Go to applicationsutilities and launch disk utility. To make matters worse, os x only uses udf disks that utilize the full disk not just a partition. Select the new untitled partition so we can format it as exfat for use with both mac and windows. In general, windows builtin tools disk management and diskpart can format drive to exfat easily. Mar 15, 2018 when you connect a macformatted drive to windows, youll be informed that you need to format the disk in drive x.
However, regarding your inability to format the drive rather than the partition, try selecting the partition button along the top of disk utility. 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. Format external hard drive or usb drive for mac easeus. Rightclick in the unallocated space on the initialized disk and select new simple volume. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. And then click on erase to erase and format the external disk or flash drive. It is the reliable disk formatting tool for windowsmac. How to format usb flash drive on windows or mac os. 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 on mac.
Give the partition a name and select exfat for the format. The best way to fix flash drive not recognized on windows and mac. File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple. If you plan to use the usb drive on linux computers, you can format it to this file system. Flash drive not recognized issue on windows and mac.
How to format a hard drive for mac internal, external or. How to choose the best format for usb drive on windowsmac. Go to the applications folder on your mac s hard drive, then. The app is fairly compact tool, which has been designed to help you restore your laptop to its original state. Aug 16, 2019 whatever the reason, windows 10 ships with several tools to format virtually any kind of storage, including usb flash drives, using file explorer, disk management, command prompt, and powershell. Insert the flash drive or hard drive you want to format for windows compatibility. In the file system list box, choose exfat, type in. Formatting usb flash drive means emptying all files in the drive and returning to the initial state. To format a usb flash drive to fat32 in mac os x follow these steps. Sometimes, you might have to format your usb flash drive to either wipe it or fix errors, etc. Flash disk, hard disk eksternal adalah media penyimpanan eksternal yang biasa digunakan untuk memindahkan atau mencadangkan dokumen.
Formatting would erase data completely, make sure that you have a data backup. Install windows from a usb flash drive microsoft docs. How to format a usb flash drive on windows 10 windows. Have you ever ran into a problem where youre trying to use a flash drive on both windows and mac. There will be no space wasted by protected mac partitions. If you wish to boot the drive on a pc or use it with older versions of windows, you may also need to set the partition scheme to master boot record mbr for full windows compatibility. Now, click on the top partition, name it windows, and change its format to msdos. May 29, 2018 to format external drive to file system compatible with mac and pc, connect the drive to your computer and follow the detailed steps given below take formatting hard drive to exfat in windows 7 for example.
Generally, the formatting process can go smoothly via file explorer, disk management or diskpart command. Better still, it can be read from and written to on any mac running mac os x snow leopard or later and on windows. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Biasanya pengguna baru yang beralih dari windows ke komputer mac akan bertanyatanya bagaimana cara format flash disk atau hard disk eksternal di komputer mac. You should go ahead and format your storage drive with exfat. 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. Hp usb recovery flash disk utility for use with computers running win 7win 7 64 bit.
Paragon disk wipe allows you to create a bootable usbflash drive or external hard drive that will help you to completely erase a whole hard disk, a separate partition or just clean free space. Use the wizard to create a partition with the ntfs or fat32 file system. In the file system list box, choose exfat, type in a volume label if you want, and then click start. However, once in a while, windows was unable to format flash. Formatting is a very simple procedure which is operated in a similar way for all sorts of storage media. Under file system box, select exfat for this drive. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac.
The drive will now be formatted for use by windows systems. Accordingly, if you switched from one operating system to another, then the question of how to format a usb flash drive on a mac is very urgent for you. Then click the second partition, name it mac, and change its format to mac os extended journaled. Hp usb recovery flash disk utility is designed to be used on hp devices that have the ability to create removable recovery media. In fact, there are significant differences informatting the flash drive in the windows operating system and in the apple product. How to choose the best format for usb drive on windowsmaclinux. To format external drive to file system compatible with mac and pc, connect the drive to your computer and follow the detailed steps given below take formatting hard drive to exfat in windows 7 for example. By the way, we will talk about production usb and nonproduction usb. I click on the format disk button, a window is displayed indicating the capacity of the drive at 200mb. I put it in my win 7 pro machine to format it for win7. Hi there, i have a usb flash drive which was formatted for a mac.
In the top menu bar, go to view, and choose show all devices. Heres how to format a new flash drive thumb driveusb stick on a mac for both pc and mac. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 in mac os x. Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. How to format usb flash drive on mac free mac data. Thankfully, exfat a strict upgrade over fat32, is a file system optimized for usb flash drives. Connect the usb fash drive to the mac os x computer. Give your settings a final lookover and click apply. The solution, as suggested by pieter, is to place a fake partition table via mbr in the first block of the drive, which lists a single entiredisk partition. Jul 29, 2019 formatting usb flash drive means emptying all files in the drive and returning to the initial state.
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