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. How to permanently wipe usb flash drive on mac or windows. Go ahead and plug in your flash drive in the usb port on your mac. If you want the usb device to be readable by the both mac and windows devices, then you have three options ntfs, fat or exfat. If i insert the usb drive on a windows machine, windows indicates that i need to format the drive before i can use it. Windows keeps asking me to format my external flash drive. Ive seen claims on the internet that formatting these drives in the mac os extended journaled. As the disk utility window would open, you can view the connected pen drive labeled under the external devices on the left. Wipe usb flash drive by using inbuilt format option. How to format a usb flash drive on windows 10 windows central. If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. To format a usb flash drive using powershell commands, use these steps.
Im sorry to say that this step is going to be laptop specific. Also, go to macs finder applications utilities and launch disk utility from here. In the screenshot below, the drive is formatted with. I click on the format disk button, a window is displayed indicating the capacity of the drive at 200mb. On windows 10, the ability to format a usb flash drive can come in handy in a number of scenarios. But you have to disable or turn off the autorun functionality in microsoft windows to avoid autostarting anything from the usb flash drive and preventing the infection. Open up your my computer or computer in vista from the start menu and look for the drive that has a removable disk icon. I use the exfat format so you can go between the two. Learn how to use macos recovery to reinstall the mac operating system on your builtin drive or an external drive. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. Select mac os extended journaled, or your preferred format type. Oct 29, 2019 firstly, connect your flash drive to the mac by inserting it to the correct usb slot.
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. In the main interface, right click the partition on that need. Then proceed to highlight your computers hard drive. Heres how to format a drive using a mac including how to format a drive for windows and mac so the contents can be read on both platforms, and what format to use for time machine. Whether the usb should be readable by windows machines and mac machines or just by mac and not readable in windows. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with windows and mac. Jan 15, 2020 learn how to use macos recovery to reinstall the mac operating system on your builtin drive or an external drive. When you click on usb disk you will see a few tabs. 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. A dropdown menu will appear with the following options. How to format a usb flash drive on windows 10 windows. Insert the flash drive or hard drive you want to format for windows compatibility. How to reinstall macos from macos recovery apple support.
After that, go ahead and launch the finder and click on your flash drive detected by your mac. Moving files from macformatted external hard drive to pc. And then click on erase to erase and format the external disk or flash drive. If you want to use the drive between a windows and mac machine, you can format it to fat32. All windows and mac computers comes with an inbuilt format disk option to erase everything from a usb flash drive.
Windows uses ntfs and mac os uses hfs and theyre incompatible with each other. Oct 29, 2019 now, when you are formatting a usb drive on mac, you have an important decision to make. Mar 22, 2012 the best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. The drive will be erased with the selected format and will be usable on both macs and windows pcs. I use the exfat format so you can go between the two of them. Dec 29, 2015 windows uses ntfs and mac os uses hfs and theyre incompatible with each other. Rightclick on the device you wish to format and select format. Now, lets take a look at some ways you can format your usb drive on windows 10. Tried 4 times, each time it came back mac os extended journaled. Most do not even realize it is possible to manipulate their file storage in this way.
Your mac computer comes with a handy utility appropriately called disk utility, which can be used to format any. Open the computer management console a windows 8 b windows xp, windows vista, windows 7 3. So, if it needs to be formatted at all, you need to format it as fat32. Firstly, connect your flash drive to the mac by inserting it to the correct usb slot. 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. If a wireless network is available, you can choose it from the wi. That said, if you are using both a pc and mac in the workflow, youll need to use a different. How to format usb flash drive on mac stepbystep tutorial. 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. 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. Now, when you are formatting a usb drive on mac, you have an important decision to make. The former option can help ensure that the usb drive is made fully compatible with your mac, since most usb drives are preformatted for windows computers by default. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac.
Most usb flash drive users do not ever think to format their drives. In the screenshot below, the drive is formatted with the exfat file system. It is a good way to reclaim storage space from the full usb flash drive. Format usb or flash drive software windows 10 free. Once the set up is complete, mount your drive and it will be visible on file explorer. Its below the file system heading near the top of the page. Go to the applications folder on your mac s hard drive, then go to the utilities folder, and launch disk utility. You can then rightclick in the empty space and select new simple volume to create a partition and format it with the windows ntfs or fat32 file systems.
However, you can format the drive to work with both windows and mac by. Jul 16, 2017 heres how to format a new flash drive thumb drive usb stick on a mac for both pc and mac. A vast majority of video production will be done on a mac or windows operating system, so we arent going to cover linux. However, you can format the drive to work with both windows and mac by using the exfat filesystem. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Moving from windows to mac transferring your documents. But again, that is if you do not have any plans in using it on a prehigh sierra course. We will show you how to use this feature as your advantage to make sure everything is deleted permanently. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. When you have a flash drive, the first thing you may need to do is format it in such a way so it can be read by both mac and windows machines. Apr 30, 2016 now, lets take a look at some ways you can format your usb drive on windows 10.
Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility. Once finished, you will have a fullyfunctioning usb flash drive with windows 10. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac. Some mac users often empty the usb flash drive by deleting the files from the usb flash drive. How to reuse revert reformat a usb flash drive from. Plug the drive into a usb socket if you have a recent macbook or macbook pro that only has usbc connectors, youll need a usbc to usba adaptor. 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. You just need to mount your disk and access all of your files. Format usb flash drives to work with both mac and windows.
How to choose the best format for usb drive on windowsmac. How to reformat mac os x without a recovery disc or drive. 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. In the file system list box, choose exfat, type in a volume label. The best ways to format an external drive for windows and mac. Mine displays as 2 gb smi usb disk media, then underneath it you will see usb disk. Select your flash drive in the disk utility window then click the erase tab. In the file system list box, choose exfat, type in. Or you can choose wipe hard drive to completely delete the hard drive. How to format an external disk or a flash drive for mac.
Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with. What disk utility looks like in lion through yosemite. Rightclick or controlclick the drives icon in the finders sidebar or on your desktop and select get info. This is usually assigned to the last drive letter and may show multiple drives if multiple devices are plugged in. Reformat the flash drive to the exfat file format system. Windows cannot read a mac formatted disk, but macs can read a windows formatted one. However it is an easy way to make the most out of your data storage experience. Open the disk utility app on your mac using one of the following methods, depending on the type of disk or volume you want to erase. Transferring a 4gb or larger file to a usb flash drive or. In precious articles, we have talked about reformatting usb flash drive on windows pc. Rightclick on the drive you want to format, click on format. Formatting cruzer glide for windows and mac sandisk forums. Windows cannot read a macformatted disk, but macs can read a windowsformatted one. If you have any files you want to save, copy them to another storage device.
I mounted the usb drive on mac, ran diskutililty and erased using msdos. Jul 05, 2017 rightclick or controlclick the drives icon in the finders sidebar or on your desktop and select get info. In disk utility on mac, you can erase and reformat storage devices to use with your mac. How to format a flash drive to work on os x and windows. Under file system box, select exfat for this drive. Do these steps and you will then be able to format your flash drive on your mac. How to format a usb flash drive on a mac techwalla. Its exactly the same procedure if you need to reformat a flash drive on a mac. Re format the flash drive to the exfat file format system. You dont have to be a technological wiz to reformat your usb drive. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. This option is near the middle of the dropdown menu.
Aug 16, 2019 on windows 10, the ability to format a usb flash drive can come in handy in a number of scenarios. Format usb flash drives to work with both mac and windows 7. Windows keeps asking me to format my external flash drive i bought a flash drive sometime ago and its been working fine but when i went to use it yesterday, windows told me to format it. To use it, download hfs for windows here and install on your pc.
Go to the applications folder on your macs hard drive, then go to the utilities folder, and launch disk utility. Ive tried every slot on my laptop but it keeps bringing up the option to format before i can use it. A drive with two partitions, for example can have one partitioned in exfat and another in a mac os extended format, so you can use the same drive on a mac and a windows computer. Since you want to format your usb flash drive, cleaning it first with an antivirus is not needed because formatting it will also remove the virus. Select your usb flash drive from the list and click next. Youll see the drives file system displayed to the right of format under the general heading. 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. In the format list box select exfat, enter a volume label if your want, then click erase. You can make this your client name or your company name. How to format usb drives on windows 10 make tech easier. Rightclick the hard drive and choose wipe hard drive.
Rightclick your flash drive and then select format. Erase and reformat a storage device in disk utility on mac. How to format external hard drives for mac and windows. Aug 27, 2019 that is why if you are going to reformat a flash drive on your mac, then you should definitely choose the afps format as it is known to be the most reliable and faster than the mac os extended. Heres how to format a new flash drive thumb driveusb stick on a mac for both pc and mac.
1247 882 785 278 1338 1157 1059 290 1208 1458 543 249 1377 1557 914 127 165 1006 835 615 1310 217 387 920 1032 1057 1379 965 17 720 1335 1369 1168 1348 1167