See this step-by-step tutorial on how to format your USB drive on Mac (macOS 10.13 High Sierra) and PC (Windows 10). Skip to content. If you are on an earlier operating system like Windows 7, XP, etc. The screenshots may look slightly different. Formatting a USB Flash Drive for Mac & PC Compatibility ” Harsh Chaklasiya. Both Windows 8 and Mac OS X allow you to adjust the size of the format partitions on external hard drives. Set the number to the maximum to use the entire drive in a single partition.
Everyone these days has an external media like a flash drive or an external hard drive which they use to expand their storage space, or transfer files and folder between two computers or to keep some personal or confidential documents separate from the computer. A new external hard drive or a USB flash drive that you just bought can be used with both Mac and PC, but not always straight out of the box because most of them (external hard drives or USB flash drive) are sold in NTFS format, which is fully compatible only with Windows. A Mac can only read the NTFS formatted hard drive but can not write any data on to it until you install a third party apps like NTFS for Mac or NTFS-3G to. So, If you wish to use the hard drive for Mac, you need to format the external media in Mac OS X native file system called “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” filesystem.
This will ensure full Mac compatibility of a new external hard drive or flash drive. Why would you format an External Disk or a Flash Drive in Mac OS Extended (Journaled)? There are a good number of reasons why you might want to format an external disk or a flash drive for full Mac compatibility. Here are the following most common reasons why would you like to format an external disk or a flash drive for Mac under Mac OS Extended ( Journaled).
Mac OS X can only be installed on a hard drive formatted in Mac OS Extended ( Journaled), filesystem. So if you wish to clean a hard drive for a fresh install of OS X you will need to format it under Mac OS Extended ( Journaled). If you want to create an encrypted drive for Mac, it should be formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
If you want to use the drive for Time Machine backup, it must be formatted in Mac OS Extended ( journaled). You must format the external disk or flash drive in Mac OS Extended ( Journaled) with GUID partition table, If you want to make it a bootable USB installer disk for OS X. How to Format an External Disk or a Flash Drive for Mac? Please be aware that formatting a drive will erase it completely, so make sure you have backed up any important data you want to keep in case you are not using a brand new external hard drive.There are two ways to format an external disk or a flash drive for Mac. You could either use Disk Utility or Terminal command to format it for Mac.
Format an External Disk or a Flash Drive for Mac using Disk Utility in OS X El Capitan and macOS Siera. Connect the External disk drive or Flash Drive and open Disk Utility.app from /Applications/Utilities/ folder. Select the External drive or Flash Drive on the left that shows the capacity and not the Volume which appears indented below the drive. Even if you select the Volume, it will also format the Disk, because there is no other Volume on this disk as shown in the picture. You must select the drive name as a correct way to format the disk.
Click on the Erase option across the top in the main window. How to Format an External Disk or a Flash Drive for Mac. You will be presented with a dropped down panel where you need to type a name for the Volume and select the format type as Mac OS Extended ( Journaled) and partition map scheme as GUID. OS X Extended (Journaled) is the default Mac file system with GUID partition scheme. Though, you can choose between different partition scheme: GUID Partition Map, Master Boot Record, or Apple Partition Map. GUID is the most recent one, while Master Boot Record (MBR) is older.
Both also work with Windows PCs while Apple Partition Map works only with Mac. How to Format an External Disk or a Flash Drive for macOS Sierra. Select the GUID Partition Map if you are creating a bootable install Disk or going to use with Time Machine backup. And then click on “Erase” to erase and format the external disk or Flash drive. Formatting an External Disk or a Flash Drive for Mac. Please note that, when you select the indented Volume name below the drive name on the left, then you also get the security option during erase/Format.
But the partition scheme option will be unavailable, because you are formatting a volume not the disk. Format a volume for Mac in macOS Sierra using Disk Utility.
Security Options will allow you to erase the Volume securely by overwriting the contents of the drive upto seven times before removing the header information from files and folder. When you click on security option, you get a new pop up window with a slider to adjust the level of security ( in terms of data overwrite) while erasing the disk. This secure erase will make it almost impossible to recover the contents or data of the hard drive using any data-recovery software. But secure erase will take ages to complete, depending upon the size of the volume.
Use it only when you really need to erase content securely and if you had highly confidential information in the drive otherwise leave the slider to fastest to erase it quickly. Adjust the security level while formatting an external disk or Flash drive for Mac. Once the erase is completed, click on the done and now you can use the external drive or the formatted Flash drive for Mac as you want. Connect the External disk drive or Flash Drive and open Disk Utility.app from /Applications/Utilities/ folder. Select the External drive or Flash Drive on the left that shows the capacity. Click on the Erase option across the top in the main window. Format an External Disk or Flash Drive for Mac in Maverics.
Now type a new name for the Volume and select the format type as Mac OS Extended ( Journaled). Now click the “Erase” button and confirm again on the next pop-up window to format the External Disk or a Flash Drive for Mac. The above command will erase and format the external disk or flash drive (disk2 in my case) in Mac OS Extended ( Journaled) filesystem. All the contents of the disk will be erased and Volume will be renamed to MyBackup as mentioned in the command and the newly formatted drive will appear on your desktop. Note:- If you want to you will need to use HFS Explorer or HFS for windows by Paragon Software, or you can format this external drive or flash drive in exFat, which will be compatible for both Mac and PC.
Most external drives ship in formats that are universally recognised amongst nearly all operating systems (FAT, I’m looking at you), but there may be times where you might want to completely wipe a drive and/or set it up to be compatible with Apple’s Mac lineup only. Either way, you’ll want to format your drive accordingly. Formatting an external drive on your Mac is quite easy, though it isn’t as evident and obvious as it is on a PC.
You can format a drive in OS X using two applications: Disk Utility and Terminal. We’ll be detailing both of these methods below. Formatting a Disk Using Disk Utility Formatting a disk using Apple’s Disk Utility is the easiest and most straight-forward method of the two. To format a disk using Apple’s Disk Utility, simply follow the steps below. Open up Disk Utility on your Mac. You can either do this by searching for it from Spotlight or by navigating to “Applications - Utilities” and opening Disk Utility.
Select the disk you want to format from the left-side pane. You’ll see the option to “Erase” the disk at the center – top of the window. Once you click on it, you’ll have the option to rename the disk, select the format you want for the disk (more on that later), and select the disk scheme.
Once you have everything selected, simply click on Erase, and you’ll have a newly formatted disk. Formatting a Disk Using Terminal This method is aimed towards power users who are fond of using Terminal to do work on their Mac. It is a little longer but often comes in useful when Disk Utility refuses to perform your desired action for some reason. To format an external disk using Terminal, simply follow the steps below: 1.
Open Terminal, either by Spotlight or by opening the app from “Applications - Utilities.” 2. Enter the following command into Terminal.
Diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ diskname diskidentifier In the command above, change “JHFS+” to “ HFS+” if you want a volume that is not journalled. Change “diskname” to the new name you want for the disk, and replace “diskidentifier” to the Disk Identifier obtained from Disk Utility. If you want to reformat, replace eraseDisk with reformat and delete the “JHFS+” and “diskname” parts of the command.
Use eraseDisk to erase the entire external disk, or eraseVolume if you just want to erase a particular partition. For example, I’d use “disk2s2” if I wanted to erase Untitled only in the example below: Once done, press Enter, and your disk should be erased and formatted completely. Disk Formats With Disk Utility, you have 3 main formats that you can erase your disk to. MS – DOS (FAT) MS-DOS (FAT) is the most popular format amongst external hard disks, as it’s both readable and writable by nearly all operating systems, Windows and OS X included. One of the major limitations of this format is that it’s not able to write files larger than 4GB, which can be quite a setback.
But apart from that, this will be the format you’ll want to use if you want a drive with cross-compatibility for quick transfers, or temporary storage. Most drives are formatted in MS – DOS (FAT) out of the box. ExFAT ExFAT is for those of you who are finding it hard to use FAT with all the limits, especially the large file transfer issue. ExFAT is basically an extension of FAT that allows for larger file sizes to be written and more. Note that ExFAT is only compatible with versions of Windows later than Vista.
OS X Extended OS X Extended is Mac’s native drive format. Your internal Macintosh drive is also formatted in this format.
It’s recommended to use this format whenever you need to use an external drive with OS X only. One interesting feature of OS X Extended is that it is case-sensitive, i.e if you specifically name a file “BeachShot1,” OS X will see that file as different from a similar file named “beachshot1.” While formatting your disk to OS X Extended, you’ll have four main options:.
OS X Extended (Journaled). OS X Extended (Case Sensitive, Journaled). OS X Extended (Journaled, Encrypted).
OS X Extended (Case Sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted).