If you're moving it between Mac and Windows, you want to format your flash drive with the FAT32 filesystem. It shouldn't matter whether you format it on your Mac or on a Windows machine. To do it on the Mac, plug in the flash drive, and open Disk Utility (in your /Applications/Utilities folder). Before you proceed, make sure you make a copy or a backup of the data present on the drives as it will be deleted when the format process takes place. Steps for Hard Drive or USB Flash Drive Formatting. The first step is to connect the hard drive or USB key to the Mac.
Format Flash Drive Mac Os X
Hi there mlr99,
Don’t Format the Drive! (Yet) When you connect a Mac-formatted drive to Windows, you’ll be informed that “you need to format the disk in drive X: before you can use it.” Don’t click the “Format disk” button or Windows will erase the contents of the drive–click “Cancel”! Actually, if we want to format a USB flash drive under Mac OS, we should find USB flash drive formatting software at first. Here are top 5 USB flash drive formatting software tools for Mac to help in formatting, reformatting, erasing USB flash drive under OS X or macOS. Best 5 USB flash drive formatting software for Mac.
From what you describe it sounds like you are trying to install Lion on your newly installed HDD replacement but its not showing as a disk when you try to actually install Mac OS X. That indicates to me that the drive has not yet been formatted as Mac OS Extended Journaled, so it is not ready for Lion to install onto it. This section of the following article will help you get that drive erased and formatted properly so you can continue with the installation:
- Before you begin, make sure your Mac is connected to the Internet.
- Restart your Mac. Immediately hold down the Command (⌘) and R keys after you hear the startup sound to start up in OS X Recovery.
- When the Recovery window appears, select Disk Utility then click Continue.
- Select the indented volume name of your startup disk from the left side of the Disk Utility window, then click the Erase tab.
- If you want to securely erase the drive, click Security Options. Select an erase method, then click OK.
- From the Format pop-up menu, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Type a name for your disk, then click Erase.
- After the drive is erased, close the Disk Utility window.
- If you’re not connected to the Internet, choose a network from the Wi-Fi menu.
- Select the option to Reinstall OS X.
- Click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions to reinstall OS X.
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Oct 1, 2015 7:32 AM
Admittedly, the Mac OS X platform is fundamentally different from the Windows platform. Coming from Windows to macOS can be somewhat confusing, even on the little things like formatting a hard drive, USB flash drive, or SSD.
If you are experiencing such ‘confusion,’ we are going to walk you through how to format a hard drive for a Mac OS X computer. But before we get down to that, here is some interesting fact you ought to know.
Most generic computer drives come preformatted for use on Windows PCs and are not compatible with Mac OS X out of the box. Though should you plug one into a Mac, it will generally read and work. That is because Mac can easily read other filesystem formats including those of Windows like MSDOS, FAT, FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS formats.
However, you should know a drive formatted to be entirely compatible with the Mac filesystem is more recommended and necessary for use with Time Machine and making bootable Mac OS X disks.
On the other hand, if you plan on using the disk between your Mac and Windows PC, you can format it to a filesystem compatible to both.
How to Format Disk on Mac Computer
Whether you want to format a hard drive, solid state drive (SSD), USB Flash drive, microSD card or any other type of disk. The procedure is the same. It also doesn’t matter if the disk is connected via USB, Thunderbolt, or Firewire. The steps are a follows:
Connect the disk to your Mac via the appropriate port (USB, Thunderbolt, or Firewire)
Go to Application > Utilities > Disk Utility
Locate the drive by looking for its name on the left-hand panel of the Disk Utility and click on it
Now click on Erase tab located at the top
On the Format contextual menu, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
At this point, you can name the disk if you want; though you can always do that at any time
Mac Os X Format Flash Drive For Windows
Next, click on Erase and a second confirmation window will pop-up, and confirm Erase
Mac Flash Drive To Pc
Voila, you are done with formatting the disk. You should know that SSDs and USB flash drives will typically format much faster than an external hard disk. Speaking of the external hard disk, the bigger the capacity, the longer it will take to format.