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- FORMAT USB FOR MAC AND PC DISK UTILITY FOR MAC OS X
- FORMAT USB FOR MAC AND PC DISK UTILITY FULL
- FORMAT USB FOR MAC AND PC DISK UTILITY FREE
If you're transferring files from Macs to PCs, this won't be an issue however, transferring files from PCs to Macs won't be possible if your drive is formatted in "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)." If you will only be working with Macs and not PCs, this may not be an issue.
FORMAT USB FOR MAC AND PC DISK UTILITY FOR MAC OS X
The "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" option will have the highest degree of support for Mac OS X features, and there's no limit to the size of files you can put on the drive.ĭisadvantages: Windows-running PCs can read files from drives formatted this way, but they can't write to them (at least not without the same amount of work it takes to get OS X to write to NTFS-formatted drives). You can even set up an OS X startup drive if you have the right files, the know-how, and a big enough flash drive, which will allow you to boot your Mac off an external disk if something goes wrong with your built-in drive. It also includes support for features from OS X Lion, such as Versions.
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FORMAT USB FOR MAC AND PC DISK UTILITY FULL
Mac OS Extended (Journaled) - This is the default file system format for Mac OS X drives.Īdvantages: Formatting your USB flash drive this way will give you full interoperability with Macs. I'll discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the other three formats below.
FORMAT USB FOR MAC AND PC DISK UTILITY FREE
Unless you have extraordinary needs, you can safely ignore two of them: Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) and Free Space. There are several possible file system formats you can use for a USB flash drive, and changing them in Disk Utility is as easy as selecting the number of partitions you want on the drive (usually just one), picking the format you want for the drive, and clicking "Apply." Note that this will erase all information on the drive, so make absolutely sure you've got copies of everything before moving forward.ĭisk Utility gives you five different choices for drive formats in OS X Lion. If the drive is listed as NTFS-formatted, you're going to need to format it to something else if you want full compatibility with Mac OS X. If the drive's format comes up as MS-DOS (FAT) or, less likely, ExFAT, you may be able to simply leave the drive as-is and not bother reformatting it. Your new drive should appear in the left-hand column, and clicking the "Partition" tab will bring up info on the drive which includes its current format. How do you tell which format your brand-new USB drive has? Hook it up to your Mac and launch the Disk Utility app, located in your Utilities folder (which is in Applications). If the drive comes formatted in NTFS, which is the default file system for Windows, you're going to want to re-format the drive because Mac OS X can't write files to NTFS-formatted volumes (at least not without a bunch of extra work that's beyond the scope of this article). The first format, FAT32, is fully compatible with Mac OS X, though with some drawbacks that we'll discuss later. If you need to back up any information on the drive, first connect your drive to a computer that does recognize the drive and transfer the data to a new storage device.The overwhelming majority of USB flash drives you buy are going to come in one of two formats: FAT32 or NTFS. Choose "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" to use the default Mac file system format. Click the "Format" drop-down menu and select the format you want to use. Select your hard drive from the list and click the "Erase" tab. Restart "Disk Utility" if you had to restart your computer to perform a repair and you still don't see your drive. You may need to restart your computer and follow the prompts to complete the repair.Ĭlick the "Finder" icon in the Dock and look for your drive in the sidebar.
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If the operating system already mounted the drive, an "Unmount" button displays instead.Ĭlick the "First Aid" tab and select "Repair Disk," if available. Select your hard drive, optical drive or other attached drive in the sidebar. Click "Go" and select "Utilities" from the drop-down list. Click the background to bring up the Finder menu in the the top bar.