In the disk utility app on your mac, choose view show all devices. Format usb flash drives to work with both mac and windows. Dec, 2019 you can format the external hard drive or usb drive to make it compatible with both mac and windows machines. Technician pc windows pc that youll use to format the usb flash drive. Hey i bought an external hard drive in 25 for my both computers macbook air and pc i heard about compatibility issue. This process may take a long time to complete you can click the stop button to interrupt this process. In order for this to work you should have a usb flash drive. The windows system uses a hard drive with a different file system than the mac systems. 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. If you only intend on using the drive on a mac its recommended to format for mac os x use only using the journaled file system. If this is the case, chances are that its using a mbr partition, and the usb drive needs a gpt partition to work on a mac. Use these steps to create a bootable media to install mac os x.
Jul 24, 2018 if youve been a windows user for even a small amount of time, youd know how to format usb drive on windows. The first format, fat32, is fully compatible with mac os x, though with some drawbacks. Dariks boot and nuke hard disk drive data erase wipe. Run this command using the correct disk number for your usb. Sep 29, 2017 in these types of scenarios, cleaning the drive completely and creating a new partition with the correct settings is likely to fix the problem, and on windows 10, you can quickly fix this problem with your usb flash drive, sd card, or another removable drive using a few powershell commands. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Next, create a usb flash drive that has a boot sector.
Formatting your usb drive using windows tools you can easily format your usb drive with just the builtin features of your windows computer. Plug the usb drive into the usb port of your computer of laptop. Some flash drives have to be formatted first before you can store files on them. Windows formatted hard drives have either ntfs file system of an fat32 file system.
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. If you are not able to login to your mac, you need to use time machine backup disk. Apple has built os x yosemite and some previous os x releases with the ability to read from those disks just fine. Rather than use a mac formatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exfatformatted drives for moving data between macs and pcs. Install windows on your older mac using boot camp apple. Therefore, you can create bootable usb for your mac using transmac on windows 10788. Insert an 8gb or larger flash drive into a usb port on the mac. Your exfatformatted drive or partition can now be used for both windows and mac.
Jul 17, 2019 ntfs the default windows operating system format. How to format a usb drive for mac and pc compatibility youtube. Its fairly straightforward and all you have to do is rightclick on it and select format. Dec 16, 2018 how to create bootable usb drive for mac. You can then rightclick in the empty space and select new simple volume to create a partition and format it with the. How to format a usb flash drive on windows 10 windows. Dec 01, 2016 this tutorial will help you create a bootable usb flash drive for your mac on a windows computer. Just be aware that the maconly formats are typically not readable by windows machines without some third party software on the pc.
How to install windows 10 on mac using an external drive. Similar to windows 10, you can format usb drives on mac using disk utility app. 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. Just get a hard drive formatted as fat32 and you can plug it into a mac, get your files and plug it into a pc. How to create mac os x bootable usb pen drive on windows. To share a usb drive between a mac and a windows pc, there are two disk formats to choose from. 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. In order to write on the usb drive on mac, you need to format the device into apple supported file systems like apfs or mac os extended. How to format usb drive on windows 10 using command prompt. This is a simple procedure and is achieved the same way for all drive types and through all connections, be they usb, firewire, or thunderbolt.
How to format a flash drive for mac and pc compatibility in macos. The overwhelming majority of usb flash drives you buy are going to come in one of two formats. 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. Jan 15, 2019 nowadays, when you buy a usb drive, you can use it right out of the box with your mac. In theory, this should be easy, but sometimes it can b. Install windows from a usb flash drive microsoft docs. All the preparation is done in macos on the mac that is having an issue booting windows. Format usb for mac and pc on windows quickly and securely. Dariks boot and nuke is also a commonly used solution to remove viruses and spyware from microsoft windows installations. Dec 29, 2015 how to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. How to choose the best format for usb drive on windowsmaclinux. In the sidebar, select the disk you want to format to use with windows computers. Create a windows 10 bootable usb flash drive on a mac.
Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac. 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. Dont worry, the following part will show you the solution for windows and mac os users. How to quickly create a macos bootable usb on windows 10. How to share an external hard drive between mac and windows. Connect the drive to a usb port on your windows machine. Have you ever ran into a problem where youre trying to use a flash drive on both windows and mac. The first format, fat32, is fully compatible with mac os. Make sure the usb is partitioned as mac bootable then use use the image recovery and put your mounted os x iso into the source and your usb as the location.
How to format usb flash drive on mac stepbystep tutorial. However it is an easy way to make the most out of your data storage experience. Jun 14, 2018 format usb drive for both mac and pc use. Insert the blank usb flash drive and run hp usb disk storage format tool. How to create macos bootable usb on windows 10 uubyte.
Steps to reformat computer using usb flash drive step 1. Go to my computer and rightclick on your usb drive. Jan 04, 2012 how to format an external drive for mac compatibility. Jul 22, 2019 how to format a flash drive to work on os x and windows. Formatting a drive will erase all data and partitions on the disk. You dont have to be a technological wiz to reformat your usb drive.
You want to do this before creating the bootable media because there is a good chance that the drive was formatted using a windows device. Note that using a drive frequently between windows and. By using command prompt, you can format any usb flash drive, pen drive and memory stick that is write protected, corrupted, damaged, unreadable, unrecognized by pc and mobile. Lets see how to format usb drive on a windows pc first. 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 needed both the mac and a pc to get the job done. How to open mac format usb devce in windows youtube. 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.
Windows will format the drive as exfat and youll be able to use the drive on both windows and mac. 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. Jul 05, 2017 in the screenshot below, the drive is formatted with the exfat file system. How to format and use a usb flash drive on your mac supports windows and mac os platforms. Format usb flash drives to work with both mac and windows 7 by jack scicluna photography, llc guest writer.
How to fix usb drive not accessible or unable to format on. Now, lets take a look at some ways you can format your usb drive on windows 10. 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 hard drive for both windows and mac. External hard drive for both mac and windows macrumors. 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. How to quickly make a mac os x bootable usb on windows. Note that you should replace the disk2 with the name of the your drive from step 3 if it wasnt disk2. Go to the applications folder on your macs hard drive, then go. In disk utility on your mac, you can format an external disk for a windows computer. To format a drive on a mac, youll need the builtin disk utility application. Oct 25, 2015 how to create mac os x bootable usb pen drive with windows 10 7. 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. You can format the external hard drive or usb drive to make it compatible with both mac and windows machines.
You have to format the drive to exfat or fat32 if the burning process failed due to the wrong partition scheme. How to create mac os x bootable usb pen drive with windows 10 7. Apr 30, 2016 now, lets take a look at some ways you can format your usb drive on windows 10. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac and. Though you can mount the drive to view and copy the content, you cant write on the drive. If you want to save larger files, youll need to create a second, dedicated space using a format optimized for macos. How to create mac os x bootable usb pen drive on windows 10. After you complete the steps, the usb flash drive from mbr to gpt format, you can use the steps below to create a bootable usb installation media to install mac os x. It automatically and securely deletes the contents of any hard disk that it can detect using your desired wipe choice. It may even already be formatted fat32 if you just brought it home from the store. A user has to know how to convert mac formatted hard drive to windows formatted. How to format usb flash drive to ntfs in windows 10. This article will introduce how to format usb drive for mac and pc on widows with diskpart tool and aomei partition assistant.
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. Insert the flash drive or hard drive you want to format for windows compatibility. 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. Mac os x users often need to use a usb pendrive thats compatible with other computers. Learn how to format usb flash drive using cmd in windows 10, 8 and 7. How to format a drive for mac and pc compatibility posted by ant on march 11th, 2012 43 comments if you have an external hard drive or usb flash drive that youd like to use on both macs and windows pcs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing. How to choose the best format for usb drive on windowsmac. 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. However, unless its been designed for use with a mac, it wont be formatted using macos preferred file system either mac os extended or apfs, depending on which version of macos youre running. How to format usb to fat32ntfsexfat on windows and mac. Usb drives can be formatted on your mac using the disk utility application. Reading mac files on external hard drive via windows 10. Most do not even realize it is possible to manipulate their file storage in this way.
Jun 05, 2018 how to format a usb pen drive using a mac. We all make mistakes, and you wouldnt be the first person in the world to accidentally format a usb flash drive. You can also open a finder window, select applications in the sidebar, and head to utilities disk utility. Install windows on your older mac using boot camp apple support. Creating a gpt partition to build a mac os x bootable drive on windows 10. To format the drive in windows, rightclick it in the file explorer window and select format. Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac apple. 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. 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. Save any files you need to another volume before formatting. If youre using your drive as a secondary windows drive, youll need to choose this option. Jul 03, 2018 the process of reformatting computer using usb flash drive is explained here in step by step guide.
Formatting a disk or volume erases all the files on it. How to convert a mac formatted drive to a windows drive. It is important to use this mac since it will be used to identify the correct windows drivers. 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. 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. 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. Creating windows 10 bootable usb on mac is a common task for people who have multiple computers at home. How to convert a macformatted drive to a windows drive. Install usb disk storage format tool on your computer. Again, formatting a drive will erase it completely, so make sure you have everything backed up that you want to keep. Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility. This drive will be formatted, so make sure it doesnt have any important files on it. You will learn the easiest way to format drive on mac and windows as exfat. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac.
Format a disk for windows computers in disk utility on mac in disk utility on your mac, you can format an external disk for a windows computer. Most usb flash drive users do not ever think to format their drives. You get to select a new file system for the drive before you click the start button. If you want to use a different file system on your usb drive, youll need to format it. At the create bootable usb drive for windows installation step, choose the windows iso image and the usb drive, then click continue. To format usb drive in windows operating system, it is recommended to use the free usb formatter minitool partition wizard free edition. How make a windows 10 usb using your mac build a bootable. How to format external hard drive to use on mac and pc. Moving from windows to mac transferring your documents. Learn how to format usb flash drive using cmd in windows 10, 8 and 7 all by yourself. Convert formatted drive from mac to windows info remo. Dec 05, 2019 but using a third party all the time for accessing a hard drive on windows is not good.
The latest trend with computers is not including a cddvd drive. If you are techy and use windows and mac computers frequently, then you might need to transfer data between mac and pc. This thing is still unknown for many users but doesnt worry its not complex. If you only use a mac computer, you can format your thumb drive so it can work on windows systems. Next format your usb drive to windows fat32 format. How to format and use a usb flash drive on your mac. How to format usb drives on windows 10 make tech easier. The process for formatting a drive is different depending on the system youre using. How to format a flash drive to work on os x and windows. How to install macos catalina on external drive using windows. You can do this in disk utility on your mac, where it is called msdos fat format, but it is probably easier to just reformat the drive on your windows machine.
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