When you cannot format usb drive in windows explorer, or the usb drive not shows in my computer or windows explorer, you can go to the windows disk management to format usb drive. It will not affect the performance of the flash drive. You will see output like this note your macs terminal may be black text on a white background if you havent customized it. Aug 16, 2019 on windows 10, the ability to format a usb flash drive can come in handy in a number of scenarios. Apr 28, 2020 learn how to format usb flash drive using cmd in windows 10, 8 and 7. Now, when you are formatting a usb drive on mac, you have an important decision to make. 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. There are currently 2 choices that are provided by the windows operating system. Usb sandisk 8 gb device showing as 200mb, how do i get my. 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. Rightclick on the drive you want to format, click on format. Jul 28, 20 this will work in all modern versions of apple mac osx including 10.
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. Creating windows 10 bootable usb on mac is a common task for people who have multiple computers at home. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac apple. On windows, just right click your removable drive format file system and select exfat. Select mac os extended journaled, or your preferred format type. Have you ever ran into a problem where youre trying to use a flash drive on both windows and mac. If you want to use a different file system on your usb drive, youll need to format it. How to format a usb external disk for mac osx using disk. If your mac restarts after installing an update, open software update again to install any additional updates. When you start formatting your external hard drive with a computer you get a choice to choose the file system you want. Once your bootable usb installation media is ready, remove it and insert it into your mac, power it on, holding down the option key, and select the usb you just created to reinstall mac os x. Install windows on your older mac using boot camp apple. Whether the usb should be readable by windows machines and mac machines or just by mac and not readable in windows. You have to format the drive to exfat or fat32 if the burning process failed due to the wrong partition scheme.
Next format your usb drive to windows fat32 format. In general any fat format should work on both a pc and a mac as i understand it not from personal experience for from others and again in general if you select photos in photos and export them file menu export to a desktop folder then drat that folder to a fat formatted usb stick you should be able to use those photos on either a mac. Format usb flash drives to work with both mac and windows. Go back to disk management, and the os should now report the usb drive with the near total size but as unallocated. Download minitool partition wizard free edition by clicking the following.
Install windows on your older mac using boot camp apple support. In this tutorial we look at formatting disks via the gui app called disk utility and its equivalent command line tool diskutil. The program is able to format and repair usb flash drives under windows 7, windows 10 and earlier versions of the os. How to make a windows 10 usb using your mac build a. Best usb format tools pen drive stick formatters for.
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. Always in disk utility, select the new partition that we created in the previous. As a matter of fact, in windows os for example, there are many accessible ways for users to format a disk. This is a free pc app that actually allows you to explore and transfer or extracts the files from a mac volume. Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility. Then you can follow the steps as below to format usb drive for mac and windows on a windows pc.
How to format mac and reinstall macos from scratch. Select your usb device in the list not the partition, right click and then click on the erase option. Go to applicationsutilities and launch disk utility. To format a drive on a mac, youll need the builtin disk utility application. If you want to use the drive between a windows and mac machine, you can format it to fat32.
Click on the usb drive in the sidebar in disk utility. In macos, choose apple menu system preferences, click software update, then install all available windows support software updates. I risked it and clicked ok and it said that i didnt have sufficient rights or something. In disk utility on your mac, you can format an external disk for a windows computer. Creating a bootable ubuntu usb stick from microsoft windows is very simple and were going to cover the process in the next few steps. I will show you how you can use unetbootin to create a bootable usb, it can be used no only for mac but for windows and linux distributions too unetbootin is free software and it is also available for windows and linux check the path name of your usb disk. For example, you might want to reformat a new or used removable storage device to make sure it. Now, lets take a look at some ways you can format your usb drive on windows 10. You can make this your client name or your company name. As you can see, exfat is the only file system that works with all versions of windows and. It is a completely free application that allows you to create a bootable usb stick in order to install macos in just a few simple steps. How to format usb to fat32ntfsexfat on windows and mac. This will launch apples startup manager which shows bootable devices connected to the machine. Again, formatting a drive will erase it completely, so make sure you have everything backed up that you want to keep.
Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. 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. Mar 15, 2018 to format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format. 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. Remember, this will erase all the files on the drive. Oct 27, 2011 is there a way to retrieve data from a mac formatted usb stick on a pc running windows xp or windows vista. How to format a usb flash drive using file explorer. First, you need to connect the usb drive to your windows pc. 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. 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.
Insert the usb flash drive into the usb port of the computer. And if you format it to ntfs, it will not be fully supported in mac operating system. Better still, it can be read from and written to on any mac running mac os x snow leopard or later and on windows. Sep 23, 2019 once your bootable usb installation media is ready, remove it and insert it into your mac, power it on, holding down the option key, and select the usb you just created to reinstall mac os x. How to choose the best format for usb drive on windowsmac. Its fairly straightforward and all you have to do is rightclick on it and select format. After downloading the iso file, youll need to use boot camp assistant to move it to a bootable usb drive. Choose the exfat file system in the list and click start. Use the file system dropdown menu and select the ntfs option. Locate your usb stick under this pc, rightclick on it and select the format option. Under file system box, select exfat for this drive.
If youre having issues trying to create a bootable media, you can get a usb flash drive that comes with mac osx ready to install. If you want to use your usb stick with an apple mac, you will need to restart or poweron the mac with the usb stick inserted while the optionalt. If youve been a windows user for even a small amount of time, youd know how to format usb drive on windows. This will work in all modern versions of apple mac osx including 10. Be absolutely sure you have your files off the drive and that youve selected the correct drive you want to format. How can i read a mac formatted usb stick on windows. Depending on the file system you using to format usb stick.
Oct 29, 2019 now, when you are formatting a usb drive on mac, you have an important decision to make. Apr 30, 2016 now, lets take a look at some ways you can format your usb drive on windows 10. How to choose the best format for usb drive on windowsmaclinux. How to format a usb flash drive on windows 10 windows central. You need to show all the devices in disk utility before to start the process. Make the format mac os extended journaled and use guid partition map as your scheme. Windows can not work with hfs journaled or afs macos files systems before and after 10. Initially external disks may be formatted for windows and after you connect it to your mac it appears in the device list in the finder, but is a read only disk meaning that you cant write to it in its current format. 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.
Right click on the unallocated for the usb drive and select new simple volume. Both fat32 and exfat have advantages and disadvantages. Formatting a disk or volume erases all the files on it. How to format a flash drive to work on os x and windows. Click on erease to format the usb and create the disk. Under the external tab, highlight your flash drive. This also allows you to restore time machine backups on windows. How to format a flash drive for mac and pc compatibility in macos. To share a usb drive between a mac and a windows pc, there are two disk formats to choose from.
Format a usb stick for mac and windows osx mavericks duration. How to create a windows 10 installer usb drive from a mac. Windows cant normally read macformatted drives, and will offer to erase them instead. Is there a way to retrieve data from a mac formatted usb stick on a pc running windows xp or windows vista. Everything was fine until i took my flash drive to work and plugged it on a windows xp computer and it appeared as drive e i think and when i tried to open it it asked me to format it. Alternatively, we also have tutorials to help you create a bootable usb stick from both ubuntu and apple macos. The good news is that formatting usb on mac is also as easy as on windows 10.
By using the command prompt, you can format any usb flash drive, pen drive or memory stick that is write protected, corrupted, damaged, unreadable, unrecognized by pc and mobile. On windows 10, the ability to format a usb flash drive can come in handy in a number of scenarios. How to format a usb flash drive on windows 10 windows. To format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format. Then do a right click with your mouse to pull up a menu.
How to format a usb drive for mac and pc compatibility youtube. U disk is a commonly used mobile storage tool in daily life. In the file system list box, choose exfat, type in a volume label. How to format write protected usb drive on windows and mac how to format writeprotected usb drive. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac.
In the file system list box, choose exfat, type in. In the disk utility app on your mac, choose view show all devices in the sidebar, select the disk you want to format to use with windows computers. This works with any hard drive, flash drive, ssd, usb drive, or just about any other. All external usb disks can be formatted to work on mac osx, but not always straight out of the box. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc.
Developers of the program claim that the fat is the best format for usb drive to avoid conflicts with other operating systems. Nov 01, 2011 format a flash drive for both mac os x and windows. You get to select a new file system for the drive before you click the start button and thats it. The quickest way is to search on spotlight and click the result under top hit. You can also open a finder window, select applications in the sidebar, and head to utilities disk utility. However, single files on a fat32 drive cant be larger than 4gb. Wait for a while until the process is finished completely. How to format usb drive on windows 10 using command prompt. How to read a mac formatted usb stick on windows and vice. 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. Rightclick your flash drive and then select format. Click the erase button click the scheme popup menu, then choose master boot record. Format the usb drive make sure your usb drive is plugged into your mac and continue by opening the disk utility app by either searching for it or by navigating to applicationsutilitiesdisk.
Format usb for mac and pc on windows quickly and securely. The other formats microsofts ntfs and apples mac os extended dont work well on the other operating system. Rightclick the usb drive and select format at the menu. Format usb flash drives to work with both mac and windows 7. Mar 03, 2020 if you are on an earlier operating system like windows 7, xp, etc. How to format a mac using a usb stick in case you would prefer to use an alternative solution to the recovery tool, then you can rely on a simple pendrive and the diskmaker x program. With a new healthy volume, right click and format the usb drive. Jun 14, 2018 format usb drive for both mac and pc use. So you might want to use other applications to format your external storage devices.
As long as we format the external hard drive to one of these 2 file systems, it can be shared between mac and windows. Jun 09, 2017 in order to boot from the usb, you need to format the usb to exfat, you can do it using disk utility it comes with macos. Note, when you do this all the existing data on your usb stick will be wiped and you wont be able to recover. Now, click on the erase button and the disk utility will prepare the usb stick for the next steps youre going to follow. Under the devices and drivers section, rightclick the flash drive and select the format option. It can take about 20 minutes to format and set up the usb installer on the mac. Fat32 works with all versions of windows, mac os, linux, game consoles, etc. This file system works for both windows and mac, with limitations for linux. Use tools installed by default on the usb stick to repair or fix a broken configuration. Create a bootable windows 10 usb from macos niklas klein. Make sure its at least 8gb, which is usually marked. For some weird reasons the usb format for ps4 is fat32 or exfat. How to format usb drives on windows 10 make tech easier.
Sometimes we need to format the u disk, then how to format it, here will tell you a way 1. Click continue, you then are asked for admin and password. How to quickly make a mac os x bootable usb on windows. The release date of usb disk storage format tool for mac is unknown and we cannot say for sure if it will be released at all. Usb disk storage format tool by authorsoft corporation is a free utility that allows you to easily format your usb flash drives. For example, in windows xp my computer is equivalent to this pc on windows 10. Unlock the write protection on usb flash drive from physical switch.