Connect the USB flash drive to your Mac computer. 2.Go to Applications > Utilities > Double click and open Disk Utility. Select your USB flash drive on the sidebar, choose Erase. Rename the USB flash drive, choose the format as MS-DOS (FAT) for Format, Master Boot Record for Scheme. Then click Erase. Go to This PC, under 'Devices and drives', highlight the disk that represents your USB flash drive, right click and select Properties. In the new Properties window, check General > File system and you'll see what type of file system your flash drive is currently with. It depends on which Mac and PC OSs are involved, but generally speaking, NTFS or exFAT. FAT32 (File Allocation Table). Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X. Remember, formatting a drive erases all data contained on it so back up important files before proceeding. Let’s quickly review how to format any drive for Mac and Windows PC compatibility with read and write support.
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Active3 years, 7 months ago
I have a SanDisk Cruser drive that was formatted for a Mac and now I want to use it for a PC (and I don't have access to the Mac. What can I do?
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How To Format Thumb Drive On Mac
4 Answers
Assuming Vista or 7 (this should work on XP, 8, 8.1, and 10, as well) and that the disk is not showing up under My Computer at all:
- Connect your disk.
- Run
cmd
as an Administrator. - Run
diskpart.exe
. Use?
if you need help in this program. list disk
- Find the disk that corresponds to your USB disk.
select disk n
wheren
is the number of the disk. Confirm that you're using the right disk withdetail disk
. clean
(Warning: This command erases the disk's partition information. Any data on the disk will no longer be accessible.)create partition primary
. No size is needed if you want to use the whole diskactive
. Optional. Marks the partition as potentially bootable.format fs=fat32 quick
. You can chooseNTFS
orexFAT
instead ofFAT32
if you want. (Note: Windows 10 limits FAT32 to 4GB. I recommend using exFAT instead, which is essentially a newer version of the same format.)assign
. Assigns the disk a drive letter.exit
to quit.
If you're still having problems with the disk after trying this, you might try omitting the
quick
from step 9 to do a full format. That will take a very long time and usually isn't necessary, but may help uncover physical damage to the disk.In some cases you might need to re-initialize the disk. As above, this will destroy the data on the disk (or, rather, your ability to access it). To do that from
diskpart.exe
:list disk
select disk n
attributes disk clear readonly
. This command will unset the read-only flag on the disk. You can see the current attributes withattributes disk
ordetail disk
.online disk
. Sets the device status to online if it's been disabled.convert mbr
. Converts the disk to MBR format, which will work just fine for most disks. If you've got a USB disk larger than 2 terabytes, however, you'll want to useconvert gpt
instead.
I'm not sure if the above commands are all identical on older OSs (XP).
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Trying the other top answer, I received a 'Windows was unable to complete the format' error. So for anyone getting the same, I found another solution.
- Right click on 'My Computer' and select 'Manage'.
- Under 'Storage' select 'Disk Management'.
- In the lower right hand window, you should see the drive you're trying to format.
- Right click on the volume and select the 'Simple Volume Wizard'.
- Pick the format there and the wizard formats the disk without errors.
golmschenkgolmschenk
(On Windows 7) right click My Computer → Manage → Disk Management (under Storage).Identify your disk in the list, then right click on the volume and choose 'Format', then choose your preferred file system.
I had to delete previous volumes on that disk before I could do it - note that all data will be lost, so make sure you have backup or that you don't need it!
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ShaharShahar
Plug it into the PC. When it shows up under 'My Computer' right-click on it and choose Format.
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protected by Community♦Aug 30 '14 at 1:04
How To Format Thumb Drive On Mac For Pc 2018 Games
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