Format Flash Drive For Both Mac And Pc

  1. Using Flash Drive On Mac
  2. Format Hard Drive For Mac And Pc
  3. Can A Flash Drive Be Formatted For Both Mac And Pc
  4. Format Flash Drive For Mac And Pc 2018

Part 3: How to Format USB Flash Drive to FAT32 on Mac? If you want to use a USB drive on both Mac and Windows, then you need to format the drive to the format supported by both systems. And FAT32 is the format that both Mac and Windows PC support. In other words, you can read and write FAT32 file format on both the operating system.

  • Jon shows you how to (re)format a flash drive for use on both Mac and PC systems. This particular format will allow files bigger than 4 gigabytes!
  • Make your hard disk or USB flash drive compatible to both Mac and Windows PCs using this easy step by step guide. The irony is that, by default, Windows and Mac use different file systems. While Windows uses NTFS file system, Mac hard drives are formatted with HFS file system.

If you have an external hard drive or USB flash drive that you’d like to use on both Macs and Windows PCs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing. Learn a few ways to make your drive Mac and PC friendly.

Need to access or transfer files between Mac and PC? As simple as this task sounds, it’s not very straightforward for inexperienced users. Since Mac OS X and Windows use totally different file systems, the way a drive is formatted can determine what type of computer it will work with. In fact, there are four ways you can format an external or USB flash drive to achieve varying degrees of compatibility between Macs and PCs. Let’s take a look at them:

HFS+

Mac OS X’s native file system is HFS+ (also known as Mac OS Extended), and it’s the only one that works with Time Machine. But while HFS+ is the best way to format drives for use on Macs, Windows does not support it. If you’re only going to be using your external or USB flash drive with certain PCs – such as at home or the office – you might be interested in a program called MacDrive. When you install MacDrive on a Windows PC, it will be able to seamlessly read & write to HFS+ drives. This isn’t a good solution if you need your drive to work on any PC without installing software, though.

NTFS

The native Windows file system is NTFS, which is only partially compatible with Mac OS X. Macs can read files on NTFS drives, but it cannot write to them. So if you need to get files from a PC to your Mac, NTFS is a decent option. However, you won’t be able to move files in the other direction, from Mac to PC.

FAT32

The most universally supported way to format your drive is with the FAT32 file system. It works with all versions of Mac OS X and Windows. Case closed, right? Well, not so fast. Unfortunately, FAT32 is a very old file system and has some technical limitations. For example, you cannot save files that are larger than 4GB on a FAT32-formatted drive. This is a deal-breaker if you work with huge files. The other limitation is the total size of the partition. If you format your FAT32 drive in Windows, the drive partition cannot be larger than 32GB. If you format it from a Mac running 10.7 Lion, the drive partition can be up to 2TB. Much better, except for that pesky 4GB limit.

Can a flash drive be formatted for both mac and pc

exFAT

The exFAT file system eliminates the two major deficiencies of FAT32: the largest partition and file sizes it supports are virtually unlimited by today’s standards. Awesome, it’s perfect! Almost… since exFAT is fairly new, it isn’t compatible with older Macs and PCs. Any Mac running 10.6.5 (Snow Leopard) or 10.7 (Lion) supports exFAT, while PCs running Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP1, and Windows 7 are compatible. If you know you’ll be using computers running updated versions of these operating systems, exFAT is the clear best choice.

Format a drive using Disk Utility on a Mac

  1. Launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities).
  2. Select your external hard drive or USB flash drive from the list on the left.
  3. Click on the Erase tab. Select the format – Mac OS Extended (HFS+), MS-DOS (FAT32), or exFAT – then name the drive.
  4. Click the Erase button and the drive will start formatting. Be aware that formatting a drive deletes all of the files on it, so back up anything important before completing this step.

Format a drive using Windows

  1. Go to Computer (or My Computer in Windows XP).
  2. Select your drive from the list and right-click on it. Choose Format from the contextual menu.
  3. A window will pop up where you can choose the format – NTFS, FAT32, or exFAT. Make sure the allocation unit size is set to default and type in a volume label.
  4. Click Start to format the drive.

Hello, gaminhk!

Using Flash Drive On Mac


Format Hard Drive For Mac And Pc

Thank you for reaching out and using the Apple Support Communities. We see from your post that your seeking a way to make your MP4 videos viewable on both Mac and Windows PCs. Having that shared compatibility between both operating systems is very important, especially when you want to share to them with others.


In this situation, the best way to ensure that both a Mac and a Windows PC can access the videos from the same external device is to make sure the device is in the correct disk format. This article explains how to format a device or disk (e.g. USB flash drive, external hard drive) into the proper format that is accessible by both Mac and Windows computers: Disk Utility 12.x: Format a disk for Windows computers


In regards to your second question, check out this article: If QuickTime Player can‘t open an audio or video file


Format flash drive for mac and pc 2017

Can A Flash Drive Be Formatted For Both Mac And Pc

Please let us know if this resolves your issues.

Format Flash Drive For Mac And Pc 2018


Format Flash Drive For Both Mac And PcFormat

Kindest Regards.

Sep 1, 2016 10:19 AM