Hi there, i have a usb flash drive which was formatted for a mac. How to format internal andor external drive to work properly on mac and windows computers. On windows 10, the ability to format a usb flash drive can come in handy in a number of scenarios. 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.
However, for this you need to follow the next steps. There are a few subtle differences between exfat and fat32, but most of these are only an issue if you are using a. How to format a hard drive on windows or mac avast. Select the usb drive that you want to format for mac and finally right click on it and hit on format disc for mac. 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. The hp usb format tool allows you to format the usb flash drive in the mac os x. Use unetbootin on mac unetbootin is free to use and allows you to make a bootable usb drive for windows 10 using your mac. Now, lets take a look at some ways you can format your usb drive on windows 10. 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. Because there are different types of formats for different purposes, its good to know the differences before accepting the default settings. Format external hard drive or usb drive for mac easeus. A file system is a method and structure of data used by an operating system, called windows, linux or mac os, for reading media files such as disks, removable drives, etc.
How to format a flash drive for mac and pc compatibility in macos high. To do this, you can take the assistance of disk utility, which is a dedicated system component in mac. A popup menu will appear, and you can customize many options here. It recognizes the drive, installs the drivers, yet never shows up as an active. Following are the top features of this usb flash drive. Youll see the drives file system displayed to the right of format under the general heading. Jun 14, 2018 format usb drive for both mac and pc use. Is it possible to format the inaccessible usb flash drive on the mac to fix the issue. Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility.
Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. Step6 create bootable usb drive select the usb drive that you want to make it bootable and finally right click on it and hit on restore with disc image. Dec 29, 2015 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. Next format your usb drive to windows fat32 format. Apr 14, 2020 why need to format external hard drive for mac and pc. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac. Right click on the partition and select delete volume this will remove the partition. The mac drive may have an efi system partition on it. The other formats microsofts ntfs and apples mac os extended dont work well on the other operating system. Mac computers are capable of formatting any storage device internal or external such as hddssd, usb flash drive, and external storage. You can view the current file system of the usb drive. 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. Simply erasing a usb drive in disk utility will automatically format it too.
Follow the instructions to create a bootable usb drive. 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. As always, having a backup option will save you when plan a fails for some reason. Use the restore disk image to drive dialog box to browse for the dmg file with the installation files for mac os x yosemite in this case, and click the ok button to create a bootable usb of the operating system. If you are a personal user, you can try its professional edition. How to format usb drives on windows 10 make tech easier. To erase and format any drive connected to a mac computer running os x yosemite, use disk utility. Im here to use a windows 10 based hp laptop to format my lexar drive. How to format inaccessible or unmounted usb flash drive on mac. Thats because most of the computers in the world run windows, and windows uses a different file system, usually one known as fat32. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. How to format a usb flash drive on windows 10 windows. The first format, fat32, is fully compatible with mac os.
Follow these next steps to create one skip to step 2 if youve got a dvd already. It could take one or two hours to complete the process depending on your computer. For example, you might want to reformat a new or used removable storage device to make sure it. Select the disc image to restore on usb drive finally hit on ok to continue. Sometimes, you cant access certain bad sectors on the drive making it difficult to read the entire stored content. Rightclick on the drive you want to format, click on format. This method can be used when you are unable to format the usb device through disk utility. In the file system list box, choose exfat, type in a volume label. In the disk utility app on your mac, choose view show all devices. Rightclick your flash drive and then select format. If you are on an earlier operating system like windows 7, xp, etc.
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 above command will format the usb drive in the fat32 format which is ideal for usb drives. Terminal command line in mac can be used to format usb devices. Save any files you need to another volume before formatting. Formatting a disk or volume erases all the files on it. Turn on the pc and press the key that opens the bootdevice selection menu for the computer, such as the escf10f12 keys. Oct 29, 2019 just like windows, mac also allows a seamless solution to do pen drive format.
You can use fsntfs instead to format the drive as ntfs which will then only work on a windows pc. Insert the flash drive or hard drive you want to format for windows. In the main interface, right click the partition on that need. Whether you use mac or windows based pc, there are lots of possibilities that a portable usb device may get damaged.
How to open mac format usb devce in windows youtube. Sep 23, 2019 use the restore disk image to drive dialog box to browse for the dmg file with the installation files for mac os x yosemite in this case, and click the ok button to create a bootable usb of the operating system. How to format usb drive on windows 10 using command prompt. Next, you should assign a file system to the drive.
Under file system box, select exfat for this drive. Its below the file system heading near the top of the page. Unformat usb drive how to recover formatted usb drive. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. Among many quality flash drives, sandisk extreme pro 128 gb drive is considered the most popular usb flash drive for windows and mac. Just like windows, mac also allows a seamless solution to do pen drive format. Sep 19, 2011 the overwhelming majority of usb flash drives you buy are going to come in one of two formats. 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. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. The overwhelming majority of usb flash drives you buy are going to come in one of two formats. As you can see, exfat is the only file system that works with all versions of windows and. How to format a usb flash drive on a mac techwalla. Install windows from a usb flash drive microsoft docs. 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.
If youre lucky, you can just rightclick each partition on the mac drive and select delete volume to remove the partitions. How to choose the best format for usb drive on windowsmaclinux. Select the option that boots the pc from the usb flash drive. Rightclick on the device you wish to format and select format. File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple. Run this command using the correct disk number for your usb. Let us go through the exact steps in formatting your usb drive to fat32 on mac using the command line. Have you ever ran into a problem where youre trying to use a flash drive on both windows and mac. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. Again, like the first method, you will need a usb drive with a capacity of 16gb as a minimum recommendation and you will also need to download the. Select the mac drive from the list of drives make sure this is the drive you want to work on, if you do it for the windows formatted drive in the list, it may cost you a lot of important data. To share a usb drive between a mac and a windows pc, there are two disk formats to choose from. Oct 25, 2015 select the usb drive that you want to format for mac and finally right click on it and hit on format disc for mac. Even if the mac is unable to mount the storage, following this method will enable you to format the storage.
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. 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. In our example, we have fat32 file system which is compatible on windows. Best usb format tools pen drive stick formatters for. How to format and create a usb drive or pen drive that is compatible with windows 10, 8, 7 or mac or linux.
How to format usb flash drive on mac stepbystep tutorial. 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. How to format a flash drive for mac and pc compatibility in macos. Jul 05, 2017 youll see the drives file system displayed to the right of format under the general heading. I recommend using exfat instead, which is essentially a newer version of the same format. How to quickly make a mac os x bootable usb on windows. In the screenshot below, the drive is formatted with the exfat file system. Open up your my computer or computer in vista from the start menu and look for the drive that has a removable disk icon. Aug 30, 2019 plug in the external hard drive into the system and open windows explorer by clicking on the computer section in the side bar, you will see your external hard drive get attached to your system.
Note that you should replace the disk2 with the name of the your drive from step 3 if it wasnt disk2. In the sidebar, select the disk you want to format to use with. 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. Format usb for mac and pc on windows quickly and securely.
You may also be preparing the drive for use as, say, a storage device for a media player or to record tv programmes on a tv with a usb port. 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. This is usually assigned to the last drive letter and may show multiple drives if multiple devices are plugged in. How to make a windows 10 usb using your mac build a. How to format an external hard drive on windows and mac. Rightclick on windows icon, select disk management. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. Install the parallels desktop emulator on your mac os. Youll see the drive s file system displayed to the right of format under the general heading. For example, in windows xp my computer is equivalent to this pc on windows 10. We all make mistakes, and you wouldnt be the first person in the world to accidentally format a usb flash drive. Select mac os extended journaled, or your preferred format type. How to format inaccessible or unmounted usb flash drive on. Aug 16, 2019 on windows 10, the ability to format a usb flash drive can come in handy in a number of scenarios.
How to create mac os x bootable usb pen drive on windows. 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. Convert formatted drive from mac to windows info remo. To format hard drive for mac and windows without data loss, we suggest using minitool partition wizard and its convert ntfs to fats32 function. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac apple. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. In the file system list box, choose exfat, type in. Plug in the external hard drive into the system and open windows explorer by clicking on the computer section in the side bar, you will see your external hard drive get attached to your system. Jan 15, 2019 the main reason for formatting a usb drive as fat32 on a mac is that you want to be able to use the drive on a windows pc, as well as a mac perhaps to transfer files between the two machines. Download the windows 7 usbdvd download tool to format the hard disk now and install windows 7 later or the windows 10 media creation tool to format the hard drive now and install windows 10 later. 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. 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. 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. I put it in my win 7 pro machine to format it for win7.
If you want to use a different file system on your usb drive, youll need to format it. Fortunately, theres a great tool that you can use for free to create bootable macos media on a usb drive in a windows 10 environment. 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. The main reason for formatting a usb drive as fat32 on a mac is that you want to be able to use the drive on a windows pc, as well as a mac perhaps to transfer files between the two machines. If you want to use the usb devices in windows you have to know how to do it. Apr 30, 2016 now, lets take a look at some ways you can format your usb drive on windows 10. It can help you manage system partitions, erase an external unit like a thumb drive, and even repair your disk. This article shows you how to download a macos dmg file, format a usb drive using a guid partition table, burn the dmg to the drive and boot your mac from the usb.
How to format flash drive on win7 when it was formatted on. Oct 25, 2016 usb devices,that are formatted in mac format. You need to erase and format the usb to be compatible with your mac. In disk utility on your mac, you can format an external disk for a windows computer. A dropdown menu will appear with the following options. How do i format a usb drive on a pc that was formatted on a mac. How to choose the best format for usb drive on windowsmac. The first format, fat32, is fully compatible with mac os x, though with some drawbacks. Apr 26, 2016 to format a usb flash drive, simply plug the drive into your mac, and choose it from disk utilitys sidebar menu. How to format a usb drive for mac and pc compatibility youtube. Dec 05, 2019 rightclick on windows icon, select disk management. If you want to format a hard drive or usb flash drive on your computer, disk formatting tool is the best choice.
There are many ways to make a usb flash drive inaccessible or dismantled, the most common are. Download hp usb disk storage format tool on mac, install it on emulated windows. How to create macos bootable usb on windows 10 uubyte. This option is near the middle of the dropdown menu. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac. 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. How to format a flash drive to work on os x and windows. How to create mac os x bootable usb pen drive on windows 10.
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