Summary :
You can use a thumb drive on both Windows and Mac. But you need to format it to a suitable format. What is the best format for a thumb drive on Windows and Mac? How to format a thumb drive for Mac and PC. MiniTool Software will show you the information you want to know in this post.
If your ExFAT drive is not mounting, here is the solution. Sudo pkill -f fsck fsck was holding the disk hostage.A quick ps aux grep fsck revealed that indeed it was hijacking the disk/volume as soon as it was plugged in. Sudo pkill -f fsck (or just kill with the PID if you prefer) immediately allowed the volume to be mounted. ExFAT is the file system I recommend for external USB disks. Fortunately for Mac users, Apple has an agreement with Microsoft and so OS X supports exFAT drives (as of Snow Leopard). You can plug in an external exFAT USB drive and read and write to it on your Mac. You can take an existing disk and reformat it as exFAT right from OSX. Time Machine requires the drive to be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) also known as HFS+ ExFAT drives must be safely ejected to prevent corruption because ExFAT is not a journaled file system When using between macOS and Windows, drives should always be formatted on macOS because not all Windows allocation unit sizes (block sizes) are. ExFAT support on macOS seems to have some bugs because my external drives with exFAT formatting will randomly get corrupted. Disk Utility is unable to repair this at first, but the fix is this: Use diskutil list to find the right drive id.
Quick Navigation :
Why Do You Need to Format a Thumb Drive for Mac and PC?
You use a thumb drive to store files to use them on your computer at home and in your computer/school/local library. Perhaps, your computer at home runs macOS but other computers run Windows-based operating systems or vice versa. In a situation like this, you need to format your thumb drive to a suitable format to make it can be read and written on both Windows and Mac.
All in all, when you want to use your thumb drive on Windows and Mac, you need to format the drive to a suitable file system that is compatible with both of these two operating systems.
What Format of Flash Drive Works on both Windows and Mac?
Before you format a thumb drive for Mac and PC, you need to know which file systems can work on these two operating systems. Now, let’s look at which files systems can be used on Windows and which file systems can run on Mac. Then, you can the best file system for a thumb drive on both Mac and PC.
Windows OS supports the following file systems:
macOS supports the following file systems:
- Apple File System (APFS)
- Mac OS Extended (HFS+)
- MS-DOS (FAT)
- exFAT
We can see that FAT and exFAT can work on both Windows and Mac.
Which Is the Best Format of a Thumb Drive for both Windows and Mac?
If you want to use a thumb drive, USB drive, pen drive, or flash drive on both Windows and Mac, you can format the drive to FAT or exFAT. But which is the best format. It depends on.
FAT VS. exFAT
Both FAT and exFAT have their advantages and disadvantages. Here is the truth:
FAT File System
>>Pros:
- It is compatible with all versions of Windows and Mac.
- It is compatible with removable thumb drives, USB flash drives, pen drives, and other USB interface-based storage devices
>>Cons:
- It doesn’t support a single file that is larger than 4GB.
- It doesn’t support a FAT32 partition that is larger than 8 TB (Windows only recognizes 2TB)
- Modern versions of Windows can’t be installed to a drive that is formatted with a FAT32 file system.
>>Usage:
The FAT file system is a good choice for removable drives due to its good compatibility. But you need to make sure a single file in it is no larger than 4GB.
exFAT File System
>>Pros:
- It supports a single file that is larger than 4GB.
- It doesn’t have realistic limits on the size of the file and the partition.
>>Cons:
It is not as compatible as FAT32.
>>Usage:
- When you need to create large partitions and save files that are larger than 4GB, you can use the exFAT file system.
- When you want to share large files between Windows and Mac, exFAT is a better choice.
In a word, you can select a suitable file system for your thumb drive according to your usage.
FYI: NTFS vs. FAT32 vs. exFAT – Differences and How to Format to.
Tip: Back up Your Files in the Thumb Drive
If there are important files in your thumb drive, you should back them up before you format the drive.
- If you are using a Windows computer, you can use MiniTool ShadowMaker to make a backup of the files on your USB drive.
- If you are running macOS, you can use Time Machine to back up the drive.
How to Format a USB on Mac for Windows?
If you have a Mac computer and want to format your thumb drive for Windows, you can use Disk Utility to do the job. Of course, you can use it to format other kinds of USB drives like USB flash drives, pen drives, and more.
- Connect your thumb drive to your Mac via the USB port.
- Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
- Go to View > Show All Devices.
- Select the connected thumb drive from the left sidebar.
- Click the Erase button (you can find it from the top toolbar).
- On the pop-up Erase dialogue, you can select a partition scheme, choose ExFAT as the format, and type a name for the thumb drive.
- Click the Erase button to start formatting the drive.
- Click Done when the formatting process completes.
This post shows you how to format a USB drive on Mac using Disk Utility and how to recover data from a formatted USB using third-party data recovery software.
How to Format a USB on Windows for Mac?
You can use different methods to format a USB drive on Windows for Mac. You can use File Explorer, Disk Management, Command Prompt, or a third-party partition manager.
Use File Explorer to Format a Thumb Drive on Windows
- Connect the thumb drive to your Windows computer via a USB port.
- Press Win + E to open File Explorer.
- Right-click the connected thumb drive and select Format.
- On the Format dialogue, select the file system you want to use (here we select exFAT) and add a volume label for it.
- Click the Start button to start formatting.
- When the formatting process ends, click OK.
Use Disk Management to Format a Thumb Drive on Windows
1. Connect the thumb drive to your Windows computer.
2. Right-click This PC on the desktop and select Manage.
3. Select Disk Management from the left menu.
4. Right-click the thumb drive and select Format.
5. Type a name for the Volume label.
6. Select a file system for the drive. Here, we select exFAT.
7. Click OK to start formatting the drive.
8. Click OK on the pop-up interface to confirm the operation. Then, you should wait until the formatting process ends.
Use Command Prompt to Format a Thumb Drive on Windows
- Make sure the thumb drive is connected to your computer.
- Use Windows search to search for cmd and select the first result to open Command Prompt.
- Type diskpart and press Enter to open the DISKPART window.
- Type the following commands and press Enter after each.
- list disk
- select disk n (n stands for the drive letter of the external disk)
- list partition
- select partition x （x is the partition you want to format to exFAT）
- format fs=exfat quick (if you want to format the drive to fat, you can replace exFAT with fat).
Use MiniTool Partition Wizard to Format a Thumb Drive on Windows
Using the Windows snap-in tools to format a USB drive for Mac and Windows doesn’t give you the chance to preview the formatting effect. While, if you use MiniTool Partition Wizard (a professional partition management tool), you can preview it before you confirm the drive formatting operation.
The Format feature of this software is available in the free edition of this software. You can press the following button to get this freeware.
1. Connect the USB drive to your computer.
2. Open the software.
3. Right-click the target USB drive and select Format.
4. Select a suitable file system for the drive and add a partition label for it.
5. Click OK and you will go back to the software main interface.
6. You can preview the effect of the formatting. If everything is OK, you can press the Apply button to continue.
7. Click OK to confirm the operation.
8. Click OK when the process ends.
How to Partition a USB Drive for Windows and Mac?
You can also use MiniTool Partition Wizard to create a new partition on the USB drive for Windows and Mac.
1. Open the software.
2. Right-click the unallocated space on the drive and select Create.
3. Select the file system for the drive and add a label for it. You can also modify other parameters when necessary.
4. Click OK when everything is prepared.
5. Preview the effect on the software interface.
6. Click Apply to continue.
7. Click OK.
8. Click OK.
How to Recover Data from a Mistakenly Formatted Thumb Drive?
If you format a thumb drive by mistake and you don’t back up your data, you can use data recovery software to get your data back.
How to Recover Data from a Formatted Thumb Drive on Windows?
You can use MiniTool Power Data Recovery, a free Windows files recovery tool, to recover files from a formatted thumb drive on Windows. You can use the free edition to scan your drive for formatted files. If this software works, you can recover up to 1 GB of files without paying any cent. If you want to recover more data, you need to use a full edition.
- Make sure that your thumb drive is connected to your computer.
- Open the software.
- Select the drive and click Scan to start scanning it.
- When the scanning process ends, you will see the scan results. You can check whether you can find your needed files.
- Select your needed files and click Recover to select a suitable folder to save them. In this step, you should not select the formatted thumb drive as the destination, otherwise, the formatted files may be overwritten and become unrecoverable.
How to Recover Data from a Formatted Thumb Drive on Mac?
If you want to recover formatted files from your thumb drive on Mac, you can try Stellar Data Recovery for Mac, a free Mac file recovery tool.
This software has a trial edition. You can use it to see whether it can find your formatted files. You can get this software from the MiniTool official download center.
1. Connect the USB drive to your Mac.
2. Open the software.
3. Select the types of files you want to recover.
4. Click Next.
5. Select the target USB drive on the next page. If you want to perform a deep scan, you need to turn on the button next to Deep Scan.
6. Click Scan to start scanning.
7. When the scanning process ends, you can check the scan results and see whether your needed files are there.
8. If you want to use this software to recover all your needed files, you need to use a full edition. Likewise, you should not save the selected files to the formatted drive to prevent data from being overwritten.
Bottom Line
This post shows you how to format a thumb drive for Mac and PC using different methods. You can select a suitable one based on your situation. Besides, if you accidentally format a USB drive, you can use the two data recovery programs mentioned in this post to help you get your data back.
Should you have other issues or suggestions, you can let us know in the comments. You can also contact us via [email protected].
Many users are looking for tools like 'HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool for Mac', 'Sandisk USB Format Tool Mac', 'Kingston USB Format Tool Mac', 'Lexar usb format tool mac', 'sd card format tool mac' or 'usb disk storage format tool mac' hoping that there are this kind of tools that could be used on Mac for formatting their hard drive or usb flash drive on MAC OS X, or sometimes you are searching for a bootable format tool on mac just as what HP Format Tool could perform the trick.
Some users may also want to erase the privacy files on their device by getting it formatted, is formatting true erasing on MAC? Could formatted files be retrieved? We will explain all this in this content.
Note: before any formatting or erasing the disk/pen drive, we would recommend you backup your data on your media that you want to format onto another device to avoid unintentionally data loss. We would not expect this happen that you accidentally reformatted your disk/usb stick and then later found out you had just lost some important files.
Also read: 5 best free backup software, or how to repair damaged usb drive on MAC
Table of Content
- HOT FAQs
8 MAC Formatters for USB/SD/HDD
Exfat Vs Ntfs Mac
Here is a list of disk or usb formatting tools for mac or ways of formatting disk/usb flash on MAC to get it done.
Tool 1 - Disk Utility provided by Mac OS, the best free tool to format device
Disk Utility - the best free mac format and erase tool that is provided by Apple Inc. for users to manage digital devices not only the internal media but also external drives like hard disk, usb flash and more.
Note: Erasing and formatting with Disk Utility would delete files on devices, the deleted files could be no longer accessible without some professional data recovery tools, which usually cost around $60-100.
How to format/erase usb disk or memory card on MAC using Disk Utility
Here are the steps that you may follow to get your device formatted/erased.
- Get your device connected to MAC, and backup your data to somewhere else at first as the preparetion.
- Open Disk Utility, which can be found in Applications -> Utility
- View -> Show all devices
- Select the one you want to erase/format, and then click the Erase button. (The same function that is to perform the function of 'Format')
Open Disk Utility - Select a file system for it (if you want to format it fat32, select FAT. Exfat would be recommended since it is more powerful that fat32, later the difference would be explained)
Choose a file system to format - Confirm Erase
Confirm erase to get it formatted/erased
See the video guide here.
Pros: - More than just a format tool on MAC
- It is able to format a disk or usb flash to be hfs+, fat, EXFAT and more. (FAT VS FAT32 VS NTFS will be explained in the following parts)
- It provides repairing functions to repair your storage device if it became damaged - that stars itself among the rest tools.
- It is free of charge
Cons
- It does not provide NTFS file system while formatting.
- It is not truely data erasing since formatted/erased files could still be restored by other paid mac data recovery tools
File System Difference HFS+ VS FAT VS VS FAT32 VS EXFAT VS NTFS (Which one to use?)
| File System | Compatible with macOS? | Compatible with Windows? | Max. file size | Max. partition size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HFS+ | Yes | No | No limit | No limit |
| FAT32 | Yes | Yes | 4GB | 8GB |
| exFAT | Yes | Yes | No limit | No limit |
| NTFS | Partially(Not provided by Disk Utility in Mac when formatting) | Yes | No limit |
Note: NTFS file system is not provided in Mac erasing/formatting inside of Disk Utility. If you want your device to be NTFS, you need to try other format tools or a Windows PC to get it formatted. Only by formatting could its file system be changed.
Which file system would you suggest for my device while formatting/erasing?->> EXFAT, which both works on MAC and Windows 10 compatible with no limit in file size and file storage size, volume size and you don't have to download other tools to get it formatted but just with the power of Disk Utility.
What if I want to use NTFS as my device file system, which tool shall I use to get it changed? Try some other mac format tools instead of Disk Utility. (We would tell you later in another article.)
How to tell which file system does my digital device apply?
Mac machines: right click your device in Mac -> Get Info -> General -> Format, and see what it shows, if it says 'MS-DOS FAT32', it means your drive is in fat32 file system, which is compatible with both Mac and Windows.
Windows PCs: You may get your device connected to Windows, and then right click it -> Property ->General, and you will see a photo that shows the information on file system.
File system is FAT32
Note: if your device is damaged and shows RAW FILESYSTEM, you may follow this guide to get it repaired: How to repair drive raw file system
Damaged media raw file system
You may also want to read: how to change raw file system to ntfs; how to convert raw file system to fat32
Tool 2 - WD Drive Utilities, formerly WD Quick Formatter by Western Digital Corporation (Freeware)
WD Quick Formatter is able to reformat any hard drive (not limited to WD Hard drives) to hfs+ or exfat file system and data on the drive would also be erased while changing its file system. No chance for a recovery unless with some special data recovery utility.
WD Drive Utilities formerly WD Quick Formatter
WD Drive Utilities software allows you to configure, manage, and diagnose your WD drive. With WD Drive Utilities, you can
- Run drive diagnostics
- Manage RAID configuration (For RAID supported models)
- Erase and format drive
- Set drive sleep timer (on supported drives)
- Register drive
(Information provided by WD)
You may download it here https://downloads.wdc.com/wdapp/WD_Utilities_Standalone_Installer_Mac_2_1_1_119.zip
If the above link expired, go to this page and get a download. https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?lang=en
Tool 3 - Freecome Hard Drive Formatter or also called FHD Formatter for MAC by Freecome Technologies (Freeware)
This freeware is able to format digital device to be hfs+, fat32 as options while choosing a file system to format/erase.
It is called Freecom Mobile Drive CLS FHD Formatter Utility 1.15 or FHDFormatter for Mac.
Download sites: we checked the websites and only found the download is available on softpedia and softinformer. See the download link here
Bottomline: we would recommend you stay with the first two freeware Disk Utility or WD Disk Utility.
Tool 4 - SD Memory Card Formatter for Mac - free
SD Memory Card Formatter for Mac is introduced by SDCard.org as a external device storage formatter that is able to format usb flash, memory card on MAC for free. See details and download url at this page
Download url: https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/eula_mac/index.html
Tool 5 - BitRaser, formerly named Stellar Disk Wipe by Stellar Information Technology(30 days free trial, Paid utility)
This one is useful that could erase confidential information on your devices. It has both Mac edition and Windows edition. And admin console, network erasure is still available as enterprise solution offered by Stellar. Highly recommended paid tool.
BitRaser
File eraser and Drive Eraser for different users need. Mobile eraser available too.
Tool 6 - AweEraser by Magoshare (Paid utility)
Tool 7 - Super Eraser by DoYourData (Paid utility)
Tool for erasing data on digital device on MAC. The erased/formatted files could not be restored. It needs a pay.
Free alternative of DOYOURDATA Super Eraser Mac - Mac Disk Utility
Tool 8 - MacClean360 by DoYourData (Paid utility)
It is a Mac cleaning tool that could clean files on Mac for digital devices. You may use the first Tool 1 Mac Disk Utility or WD Disk Utility as free alternative instead of this paid tool.
Verdict
Mac Disk Utility and WD Disk Utility is highly recommended for no matter formatting a device or erasing a device, or repairing device errors.
If you want to erase files or erase drive permanently without any chance of recovery, try the Tool 3 - BitRaser provided by Stellar Information on Mac, if you don't mind erasing the device on Windows, freeware IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free could erase files/drive permanently.
Also read: 4 free tools to delete files or erase drive permanently on Windows
How to format usb flash or disk fat32 on Mac
Since Mac Disk Utility provides the formatting file system fat, exfat, you may want to know what's the difference between fat and fat32, or exfat?
See this is a photo that shows what's available when formatting the media in Disk Utility.
Choose a file system to format
More mac fat32 format tools? See how to format sd/usb fat32 on mac
- Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
- Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)
- Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
- Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted)
- MS-DOS(FAT) ----This is fat32, what you need
- ExFat - recommended since it both works on Mac and Windows OS and it has no limit in file size and partition size.
Mac Disk Utility already provides an option when choosing a file system - MS-DOS(fat), WHICH IS FAT32 WHAT YOU WANT.
Note: Mac OS (FAT) is compatible with both Windows PC and Mac platforms, however, there's a limit to trasnferring files over 4GB.
The Answer - choose MS-DOS(FAT) ----This is fat32, what you need. However we would suggest you use EXFAT.
Formatting VS Erasing (Is formatting or erasing permanent data deleting?)
Formatting, is to make a media a new place for data storage that you may change its file system while you format it. Formatted drive data would be marked as available for new data to take its space.
There are three levels of formatting
- quick format (no disk error checking and repairing)
- full format (includes repairing bad blocks)
- low-level format (it could only be performed by professional low level format tool, which is usually shorten the life of device)
Erasing, is to remove information on your device, which is more simplier than formatting, however it is not true wiping out all the information since erased files could be restored with help of free data recovery software.
Well, the truth is data could also be destoryed if you continue using your device after the formatting or the erasing and saved a huge number of files. If no data was saved to formatted/erased media, data could still be restored with professional tools.
Exfat Download Mac Software
How to erase data permanently on mac with freeware
Since erased files or erased media could still be recovered in Mac Disk Utilities and WD Disk Utlities, you may want to query how to erase data permanently on Mac? Is there any freeware that could do the permanent deleting?
The answer: BitRaser is a 30 days free program for erasing files permanently on Mac, we failed to find other free tools for the permanent erasing at this time.
Option: Erase data permanently with freeware on Windows OS using freeware IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free that provides 'Wipe Partition' to get everything truely deleted and removed without a chance of recovery.
Also read: 4 free tools to delete files or erase drive permanently on Windows
HP USB DISK Storage Format Tool for Mac Download
Is there HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool Mac available? Can I use HP USB Format Tool on Mac?
So far as we know that the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool, also called HP USB Format Uility by users is only for Windows OS for example Windows 10/8.1/7/Vista/XP and there was no news coming from the developer that a MAC edition would be released.
HP USB Disk Format Tool is provided by HP for disk formatting and making a bootable usb, however this program only provides Windows editions which is compatible with Windows 10, 8.1, 7, Vista, and XP.
The Answer: There is no mac edition of HP USB Format Tool, however here are some free solutions if you want to use it on MAC.
Formatting in HP USB Disk Format Tool, could be replaced by Disk Utility in Mac that you may save downloading HP USB Format Tool for Mac.
Creating bootable usb in HP USB Disk Format Tool, could be replaced by a bootable MacOS high sierra usb install drive, see the following video
Another option: see how to create a bootable installer for MacOS on https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
Also read: HP USB Format Tool Review and Error Fixing
Last updated on Aug 30, 2021
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