Lesson 11: Working with Flash Drives
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What is a flash drive?
Plug in the USB drive on which you want to install macOS and launch Disk Utility. If the USB drive currently has more than one partition, click on the Partition tab and use the minus sign to. Oct 07, 2016 ## Only for Hackintosh ## How-To: create a macOS Sierra USB install drive, from Windows Windows 10 Sierra Sierra Flashdrive Creator Download files here. May 26, 2020 Two file systems compatible with Mac and Windows. NTFS is the default file system for Windows operating system and HFS for Mac operating system. If you want to make your drive compatible with Mac and Windows, you need to format it with a common file system for Mac and Windows.
A flash drive is a small, removable hard drive that plugs in to a USBport on your computer. You can purchase a flash drive for less than $20 at just about any retail store with an electronics department, and even at some grocery stores and pharmacies. Flash drives are a convenient way to bring your files with you and open them on a different computer. You could also use a flash drive to back up important documents and other files. In this lesson, we'll show you how to use a flash drive with your computer.
- May 14, 2015 Macs can easily read PC-formatted hard disk drives. Writing to them, however, is a different story. If you've switched to the Mac, welcome aboard. Your old external Windows PC drive will work great on the Mac. Apple has built OS X Yosemite and some previous OS X releases with the ability to read from those disks just fine. If you're using such a drive and you'd like to write new data.
- Dec 09, 2016 Hello! In this post I’m gonna show you how to make Hackintosh Bootable USB Drive on Windows without Distro. Without distro means we gonna make a Hackintosh Bootable U S Drive for Vanilla Installation method. This method works on Mac OS X Yosemite, El Capitan, and Mac OS Sierra. As I’ve tried all that OS myself on my low budget Hackintosh PC.
To connect a flash drive:
- Insert the flash drive into a USBport on your computer. You should find a USB port on the front, back, or side of your computer (the location may vary depending on whether you have a desktop or laptop).
- Open Finder and locate and select the flash drive from the Sidebar on the left side of the window. Note that the name of the flash drive may vary. You may also see the flash drive on the desktop. If so, double-click it to open the flash drive in a new Finder window.
If you don't see the flash drive on the desktop, go to Finder > Preferences (you may have to click the desktop first to switch to Finder). Next, make sure the External disks option is checked on the General tab.
How to work with a flash drive:
Once you've connected a flash drive, you can work with it just like any other folder on your computer, including moving and deleting files.
- If you want to copy a file from your computer to the flash drive, click and drag the file from your computer to this window.
- The file will be duplicated, and the new version will be saved to the flash drive. The original version of the file will still be saved to your computer.
- If you want to copy a file from your flash drive to your computer, click and drag the file from the window to your computer.
- If you want to remove a file from your flash drive, click and drag the file to the Trash, then click and hold the Trash icon and select Empty Trash to permanently delete the file.
Flash Player Mac Os X
To safely remove a flash drive:
Mac Os Download For Windows
When you're done using a flash drive, don't remove it from the USB port just yet! You'll need to make sure to disconnect it properly to avoid damaging files on the drive.
- In Finder, click the Eject button next to the flash drive. You can also right-click the flash drive and select Eject.
- You can now safely remove the flash drive from the USB port.
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This simple guide will teach you How to Format a Flash Drive on Mac. Not only this, we will help you pick the best file system for your usb flash drive that you are planning to use on a Mac.
Majority of 49.4% of desktop and laptop computer users in the world use Windows operating system. In contrast, only 27.4% of users use MacOS, obviously for their apple computer. That’s the reason why most of the flash drives in the market are available in Fat32 or NTFS formats which are the most preferred format for windows. Although the first one, Fat32 is completely compatible with both MacOS as well as Windows, it has some limitations. Fat32 can store files only up to 4 GB of size. The latter one, NTFS is mostly used on the Windows operating system and not an optimal option for MacOS. Extra work is needed to use NTFS on MacOS. If you want to use your flash drive solely for MacOS, it is highly recommended to format your flash drive.
Here, pop-ups the question: How to format a flash drive on a mac?
Contents
- 1 Before you format a flash drive
- 1.1 Check flash Drive’s File System
- 2 How to format a flash drive on Mac?
Before you format a flash drive
MacOS supports HFS plus file system. HFS stands for Hierarchical File System.
Apple introduced this file system in 1985 to replace the existing Macintosh File System or MFS. HFS filesystem is modified into HFS plus (Modernly called as MacOS Extended). Before you format a flash drive it is suggested to know what file system your flash drive is in.
Check flash Drive’s File System
You don’t need to do anything special to know your flash drive’s file system. There are 2 ways you can do this.
Method 1: Using Finder
Plug in your flash drive. Now open the Finder and look for your USB device. Then right-click on the drive’s name. Select “Get Info” from the list of options opened.
A new window will open. Just to the right of “Format” is your drive’s file system.
Method 2: Using Disk utility app
Open the Disk Utility app from the utility folder available in the application. Your drive will be on the left column of the window. Click on the partition. Here you can check the current format of your flash drive.
If your flash drive’s file system is MS-DOS or ExFAT you can use it as it is without further formatting. But if it is NTFS, format your flash drive to make it completely compatible with MacOS.
How to format a flash drive on Mac?
Disk Utility application in MacOS is the best option to format a flash drive on MacOS. You can launch this app in two ways.
Step 1: Press Space while holding your command button. A search box will open. Type Disk Utility in the search box and press enter. Alternatively, Open the Finder window and select applications on the left sidebar. Navigate to Utilities and then Disk Utilities.
Step 2: Search for your flash drive on the sidebar of the Disk Utility app and select it by clicking on its name.
Step 3: Now Click the “Erase” button which is located just below the title bar of the window which says “Disk Utility”. This will erase your whole drive and make it a single partition.
Here you can change the name of your USB drive if you wish. This name will be visible on other devices as well if you plug your flash drive into them. Just below the Name section, you can see a section called “Format”.
You will need to choose a format option to change your flash drive’s file system. But which format to choose is the big question now! No need to worry. Read the description of each format given below and choose the format of your choice.
Types of filesystems
Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
This format is considered as default file system format of the Mac OS X drives. It also supports OS X Lion, like Versions. This format will allow you to use your flash drive on Mac without any limitations.
With Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, you can setup OS X startup drive. Make sure you have right files and know how to do it. If you have any issues with a built-in drive you can boot from the external disk. This file system format is highly recommended for MacOS. But you cannot write this flash drive from windows PC once you have formatted it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). You can read files though.
Os X For Windows Pc
OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
Go for this type of filesystem if you really need it for some reason. For OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled), the word “File” is different than “file”. It means it’s case sensitive as the name suggests.
OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted)
Same as filesystem just mentioned above but of course with encryption.
OS X Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)
To use a flash drive with this filesystem you will have to set up a password & enter it whenever you plug in your drive into any device.
MS-DOS (FAT)
This is just a name for the FAT32 filesystem in Disk Utility application. FAT32 supports to almost all of the operating systems in the world. This allows you to transfer files from one operating system to other. The best thing about this filesystem is its support to video game systems which include Xbox 360 and PlayStation. This filesystem can be called a universal system. The limitation about FAT32 filesystem is it doesn’t allow files which are bigger than 4 GB in size and also you cannot create a startup drive unlike Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
ExFAT
This is a new type of filesystem and it supports MacOS X 10.6.5 and later. It is same as FAT32 but it supports files larger than 4 GB. As this filesystem is relatively new, it does not on relatively older versions of Mac OS X. If you don’t use any older version of the operating system, you can use this type of filesystem.
Use ExFAT for this tutorial if you wish to use your flash drive on windows as well on MacOS.
Step 4: For this tutorial, you can ignore the Scheme option which we use if you wish to boot from your flash drive. Click on erase button to format your flash drive.
Voila! You have formatted your flash drive now. You can eject drive by right-clicking on its name in the left sidebar and click on “Eject”.
Suggested article: How to Reset SMC on Mac?
I hope this article has helped. If you are still facing problems or have doubts on how to format USB drive on Mac, then simply comment below.