It’s no surprise that PCs and Macs do not work well with each other, due to differences between the two operating systems (Windows vs. Right-click your flash drive and then select Format. Click Start > File Explorer > This PC. On Windows, connect your thumb drive.By default, Macs are with HFS+ (since 2017 there’s new Apple File System, APFS, optimized for flash storage), while PCs are with NTFS.All Windows and Mac computers comes with an in-built format disk option to erase everything from a USB flash drive. One main difference is the file system. The following steps will guide you to find the USB. If you are not able to see it, you can access it through Finder. A window will pop-up showing the content of the drive. When you connect the USB Flash drive on the system, Mac OS will automatically read the content of the Flash drive.
However, modern systems like Microsoft Windows since Windows Vista, Mac OS X since. Especially for removable storage devices (e.g. Choose View > Show All Devices from the menu bar.If you have a USB drive, and you plan to use it on both a Mac and PC, things can get a bit tricky here. Open Disk Utility, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder. Plug the USB flash drive into your Mac. Start your Mac from macOS. Set up outlook notifications for subfolders on a macHow to know what current file system your flash drive is with, and how to format it to exFAT?Read on for step by step instructions… How to Check a USB Drive’s File System?First of all, plug your flash drive into the USB port on your computer. This is because an NTFS-based drive can be read by macOS but you can’t write data to the drive.Now that you’ve learned exFAT is the ideal file system to go. How to Check a USB Drive’s File System?As you can see, exFAT is the only file system that works with all versions of Windows and macOS and does not have any max file-size or partition-size limits.Therefore, it’s perfect for a USB flash drive or external disk, especially when you need to save files more than 4GB in size.You should go ahead and format your storage drive with exFAT instead of FAT32, assuming that all devices you want to use the drive support exFAT.You may notice that in NTFS is marked “Partially” under the Compatible with macOS column. See the table below for more info. Note that there is another file system called FAT32 that pretty much does the same thing but with one major flaw. In other words, you can access the drive and transfer data without any hassles.That file system is — exFAT. Note: since I’ve formatted my Lexar drive on my Mac, now it shows exFAT.Important: make sure you have at least one backup of all the data stored on the device before you proceed. That means my Lexar disk is currently with the FAT32 file system.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. If you are on a Mac…Once the Lexar disk shows up on the desktop, right-click on the drive icon and select “Get Info.”Alternatively (in case the disk does not show up on your desktop), open Finder, on the sidebar menu locate your USB drive under Devices, right-click and select “Get Info.”In the new dialogue, pay attention to General > Format, where it says “MS-DOS (FAT32)”. I’m here to use a 32GB Lexar USB key as an example. The quickest way is to search on Spotlight and click the result under “TOP HIT.”Alternatively, you can access it via Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.Step 2: Under the External tab, highlight your flash drive. Part 1: Formatting USB Drive On MacPlease note: since OS X 10.11 El Capitan, Apple made a few changes to Disk Utility (see details from this ComputerWorld article).The app now has a new user interface that looks slightly different on Yosemite or earlier OS X versions.Step 1: Open Disk Utility. Read this USB drive data recovery guide for more information.Also, since I don’t know whether you are on a PC or Mac to perform this operation, I’m here to break down this guide into two parts.The first part is for Mac users, and the second part is for PC users (Windows 10 based). You may also change the device name if you want. In the new pop-up window, choose the format to be ExFAT. In my case, I can see it’s a 32GB volume in MS-DOS(FAT) file system.Step 3: Now click the Erase button at the top. ![]() Usb Zip Drives And Windows How To Recover ShortcutFolders Became Shortcuts? How To Recover Shortcut FilesMost of the external hard disks and flash drives are formatted for Microsoft Windows operating systems.That makes using the drive a bit troublesome on Mac machines.FAT32 is popular but the 4GB file-size limit makes it inconvenient, for instance, when you want to make a bootable macOS Sierra USB drive which the system file takes about 8GB of storage space according to Apple.Thankfully, exFAT — a strict upgrade over FAT32, is a file system optimized for USB flash drives.Like I said, if you want to use the device for both a PC and Mac, you should consider reformatting it to exFAT once you figure out the drive isn’t with another file system.I hope the above guide is helpful to you.Once again, as a kind reminder: formatting a flash drive will likely erase all files and data stored in the device, it’s vital to ensure you have made at least one copy of the data before you get started. “Windows Was Unable To Complete The Format”? How To Fix It If so, the following articles may be of help to you:
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