If your USB flash drive is not recognized by your Apple Mac computer because it has a different format it is kind of difficult to format it. You may not know how to format your USB flash drive to make it compatible with your Mac system but we do and will show you how to do it in this article.
Overview of Formatting USB Drive on Mac
Mac Systems have a different OS to Windows and this is where most of the problems like. Most USB flash drives on sale are designed to work with Windows operating systems that run on Fat32. Mac devices on the other hand run on either Mac OS extended or APFS. If your drive is an APFS format or a Mac OS format you can format your drive easily but if it is a FAT32 format this may be a problem. If you have made the mistake of buying a flash drive they runs on a FAT32 file format you don’t have to discard it altogether. There are ways to format a flash drive that runs on a different format and we will show you steps to take to remedy the situation.
How to Format a USB Drive to FAT32 on Mac. As earlier stated, you need to first back up your USB drive before formatting the drive as you may not be able to recover the contents again. Now, you can follow the steps to be highlighted below to get it successfully formatted. 1 Format a USB Drive to FAT32 in Mac OS with Disk Utility.
Related: Further read and know more complete details on formatting external hard drive for Mac.
Step to Format a USB Drive to FAT32 on Your Mac
Plug the drive into the Mac system
Choose Applications- Utilities then Disk Utility
From the sidebar pick USB drive
From the toolbar select Erase
Name the formatted disk and choose either ExFat or MS-DOS(FAT32) from the menu
Select erase to format your drive depending on the selection you have picked (FAT32 or ExFAT)
Most USB flash drives on sale are designed to work with Windows operating systems that run on Fat32. Mac devices on the other hand run on either Mac OS extended or APFS. If your drive is an APFS format or a Mac OS format you can format your drive easily but if it is a FAT32 format this may be a problem.
Jun 10, 2019 If you're only going to be using the drive with Mac computers, select 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled).' If the drive is larger than 32 GB but you absolutely need FAT32, you can create multiple partitions on the USB drive and format each as a separate FAT32 partition.
May 25, 2020 Some internal errors will cause a drive to be read-only as well. When this happens, your drive will be only mounted in read-only mode to prevent the data on it from corruption. Solution: Repair read-only external hard drive with Disk Utility. Fortunately, you can take some actions to repair these minor disk errors with Disk Utility on your Mac.
Aug 18, 2011 I am currently on a Dell desktop running Windows Vista. I purchased a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Drive (1.5 TB) so that it would make transferring files easier for when I move to a MacBook Pro next week at college. As I will be using and working with a Mac 95% of the time, I purchased the mac version of the drive.
Dec 04, 2019 Most WD Drives come formatted in the NTFS (Windows) or HFS+ (Mac) format. For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a PC and Mac computer, it must be formatted to ExFAT or FAT32 file format. FAT32 has several limitations, including a 4 GB per-file limit.
Convert/Format USB Flash drive to FAT32 using Command Line
Connect Flash drive to Mac
Tap CMD and space bar to open Spotlight. Type “terminal” and press Enter
Type in :diskutill land locate your USB drivr
Type in sudo.diskutilerasediskFAT32MBRFormat/Dev/disk2
Sudo will give you the user right
Diskutill will call in utility program
Erasedisk commands will format
FAT32 will set the file system
MBRFormat will tell disk to format with Master Boot
/Dev/disk2 will be the USB drive location
You will have to wait a while for the format to be completed. Type in :diskutill to check if the process was successful.
If you follow these steps religiously you should be able to resolve the issue quickly. If you're searching for a way that helps you recover formatted USB drive on Mac, download Recoverit Data Recovery software and go to the page telling you how to restore formatted hard drive.
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Not every USB drive can be used with a Mac out of the box, you'll need to format the drive to compatible with the MacOS extended file system. If you want to ensure full Mac compatibility on your USB drive or flash disk, just read this article. And you will find two ways which will teach you how to format a USB drive to FAT32 on Mac, including Disk Utility and Terminal command. And if you lost your important data because of formatting, you can use data recovery tool to recover data from a formatted USB drive on Mac.
What You Should Do First Before Formatting USB Drive on Mac
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The only way to be sure of the content you are formatting is to first remove the USB drive from Mac, know the title of other storage disks, insert the USB disk again and note the name of the disk. Now you are sure not to be formatting a wrong disk this way. Next, drag the USB data to a safe location for backup/recovery measures before formatting it. Then you are set to get it done!
Which File Format to Choose When Formatting USB Drive on Mac
For PCs operating on macOS High Sierra or newer version, you can select from two options of file formats: Mac OS Extended and APFS. Here is the difference, APFS format is not compatible with macOS versions older than High Sierra. Therefore, if you are sure to still insert your USB driver on older versions of macOS, then you should consider formatting as Mac OS Extended.
Also, if you are to use the USB drive as a destination for Time Machine, you should consider reformatting to Mac OS Extended as Time Machine cannot back up an APFS disk.
How to Format a USB Drive to FAT32 on Mac
As earlier stated, you need to first back up your USB drive before formatting the drive as you may not be able to recover the contents again. Now, you can follow the steps to be highlighted below to get it successfully formatted.
1Format a USB Drive to FAT32 in Mac OS with Disk Utility
Step 1. Insert the USB to be formatted to a Mac PC.
Step 2. Navigate to Applications > Utilities, and click it twice to open it.
Step 3. Select the drive you want to format and click on Erase.
Step 4. Rename the USB drive (optional), and choose the MS-DOS(FAT) for format.
Step 5. Then select Master Boot Record for scheme, hit Erase.
Step 6. Once the process is done, you are ready to reuse the drive with FAT32 file system to save data again.
2Convert/Format USB Drive to FAT32
Step 1. Connect the USB drive to your Mac PC.
Step 2. Click on cmd + space to run spotlight, input terminal then tap Enter key.
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Step 3. Type diskutil list to find the location of your UB drive (eg: dev/disk2 is the USB drive in the below picture).
Step 4. Type sudo diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 MBRFormat /dev/disk2.
sudo gives you user right.
Diskutil calls disk utility program.
eraseDisk commands to format.
FAT32 sets the file system.
MBRFormat tells disk utility to format with a Master Boot Record.
/dev/disk2 is the location of the USB drive.
After the process completes, type diskutil list in command once more to check if the USB drive has been formatted successfully.
If succeeded, you can use the USB drive with FAT32 file system to store data again.
How to Recover Lost Data after Formatting a USB Drive to FAT32 on Mac
Users perhaps format a USB drive by mistake. Only after formatting it, they would realize that they had lost important data. If you don' t have a backup for data, then you can recover lost data from formatted USB drive on Mac with this trusted data recovery software - iMyFone AnyRecover. You can now recover all kinds of data from formatted USB drive on Mac with only 3 simple steps.
Features of iMyFone AnyRecover:
- Your Comprehensive Mac Data Recovery Solution
You can get back your lost photos, videos, documents, compressed files, and numerous kinds of data from formatted USB drive easily.
Retrieve data from MacBook, any internal or external storage media: memory card, USB drive, virtual disk, HDD, SSD, and so on.
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Resolve all data loss situations: formatted drive, trash emptied, partition lost, accidental deletion, virus attack, hardware failure and other cases.
Sep 06, 2019 How to install macOS or OS X on a new hard drive for your Mac Format your new hard drive for macOS or OS X. You may need to reformat your new hard drive before installing macOS or OS. Install macOS using Internet Recovery Mode. Internet Recovery mode can. To boot from your external Sierra drive, plug it into the Mac in question, press the power button, and hold the “Option key until the recovery disk screen appears. From there, you can select your external drive and click the arrow to boot into it for that session. You’ll boot into your macOS Sierra installation where you can use it as normal. Connect the external hard drive to your Mac. Launch Disk Utility (press Cmd + spacebar and start to type Disk Utility). Before this next step - if you are running High Sierra or later you will need. How to install macos on new hard drive from usb. Installing macOS on a USB Drive 1. Format your USB drive as APFS or JHFS+. Choose the GUID Partition Table or GPT as your partition table.
It allows you to preview scanned files before recovery and select what you want to restore.
It supports data recovery on all types of USB drives. It also supports file formats like NTFS, HFS, FAT, exFAT, etc.
Follow the next steps to recover data after formatting USB flash drive on mac:
Step 1: Make sure you have connected your USB drive to your Mac successfully. Launch AnyRecover software on your system and select the formatted USB drive you are trying to recover from. And press the “Start” button to start the scanning.
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Step 2: The software will automatically begin the scanning process. This can help you recover your lost data from your formatted USB drive.
Step 3: Immediately after the scanning process is complete, the software will list all the files in their respective file formats and folders. Tick on and confirm what you are going to recover, then click on “Recover” button.
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Conclusion
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USB storage devices have become very popular these days because they are a very convenient way to store and transfer data. However, there could be times when you formatted disk, accidentally deleted files, your storage device could become damaged, or you could end up with data corruption due to operating system failures, viruses, software malfunctions or other problems that cause damage to your data stored on your USB storage device. If it is the case, do not panic, Just download iMyFone AnyRecover to get your lost data back quickly and easily.