Fortunately, there are some mac hard drive format software or smart disk formatting applications can help you securely and easily format, reformat, or erase hard drive under mac os. Recoverit data recovery the best file recovery software. If you have made the mistake of buying a flash drive they runs on a fat32 file format you dont have to discard it altogether. Go to applications utilities double click and open disk utility. Its regarded as the best fat32 format tool for two reasons. As the program is a command line tool, it will be necessary to extract fat32format to a directory where it can be run from the command prompt. User interface version of free and easy tool that formats hard disk drives, large or small, into fat32 as opposed to the nowdefault ntfs format. I learned that my toshiba usb drive was allowed to format to ntfs, fat32 default and exfat. It is important that your sd card is formatted to the proper format ie exfat, or fat32 depending on the type of camera, and size of the sd card. It breaks the max size limit of fat32, formatting storage devices both bigger and smaller than 32gb to fat32. Although other forums suggest starting in os9 and formating to fat32, this option is not listed in the format window. If you are not comfortable using the command prompt or powershell, you can use a free and portable software called fat32 format.
Fat 32 format external drives for mac wd community. Ntfs is read only on mac, but macfuse or another free software called ntfs 3g has to be installed on mac, and it will give you readwrite access to the drive. The first format, fat32, is fully compatible with mac os x, though with. Looking for free western digital fat32 formatting tool to format wd my passport ultra or other external hard drives to fat32 so that you can use it in both windows 7 and mac. First, download fat32 format software from the official website and execute the downloaded exe file. While mac os x includes only readonly support for ntfs, macs offer full readwrite support for exfat. Connect the usb fash drive to the mac os x computer.
Apart from mac and windows, it can support linux and android. Here is a list of alternatives to format usb or flash drive software for. To do so you can either use the disk utility or the terminal command line. When youre re formatting a hard drive, windows will ask you what format to use. Follow the similar procedure that is used in formatting the fat32 above. Rename the usb flash drive, choose the format as msdos fat for format, master boot record for scheme. Sep 04, 2014 format a usb drive pen drive usb stick usb device to fat32 to enable it to be used in a non windows device such as a tv, dvd, satellite box, set top box, car radio etc if you get the message. Rightclick the drive icon of micro vault and select format. Format to fat32 if you have an ntfs drive you can use macos disk utility to reformat it to fat32. You can the close disk utility your drives icon will be on your desktop. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 on mac easily.
For instance, you want to make your drive faster when writing large files to it or make the drive works with nonwindows operating systems. Oct 25, 2018 why need western digital fat32 formatting tool. Download disk formatting software for mac doyourdata. When i inserted a toshiba usb flash drive into windows 10 computer and chose format, i got the dialogue box as shown below. I am formatting a new 1 tb western digital hard drive. I cant format usb sticks that my car audio system can read. Oct 15, 2015 i just recently bought my 6tb my book studio edittion ii wd hard drive. This is simple to do and means the data on your driveusb stick can. Format western digital passport to fat32 with wd quick formatter wd quick formatter, also known as wd advanced format drivers afds, is an external hard drive format utility for windows and mac, developed by western digital technologies, inc. Apr 16, 2020 there are several reasons to format a hard drive to fat32 in windows 10. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 on mac easily recoverit. The easiest way to format larger usb drives with fat32if youre willing to download a free, third party appis to use the gui version of fat32 format by ridgecrop consultants click the screenshot on that page to download the app.
When the sd card needs to be formatted to restore its fat32 or ntfs file system this sd card formatter software free download is used. This version is designed specifically for the windows 2000, xp, and vista operating systems and will not work with newer versions, such as windows 8, 8. A drive can be formatted with exfat using either a windows or a mac computer. If your drive is an apfs format or a mac os format you can format your drive easily but if it is a fat32 format this may be a problem.
You will learn the easiest way to format drive on mac and windows as exfat. As long as we format the external hard drive to one of these 2 file systems, it can be shared between mac and windows. From what i understand, windows doesnt always like the way mac s do the formatting on some larger drives, though, so give it a try and if your windows machines dont like it, just format the drive with windows. Fat32 format is an aptly named tool that can format a storage device in the fat32 file system. It merits using just for the detailed information it gives you about your computers hard drive. How to format fat32 usb sticks with macos apple community. To format a usb flash drive to fat32 in mac os x follow these steps. Sd card formatter software online or even sd card formatter software for pc is available especially when the raw file system needs to be fixed and to prevent further damage due to data loss. In addition, if the partition has a volume size larger than 32gb, fat32 wont emerge as a formatting option. With this in your macos, you will be able to read and write on ntfs drives with speeds of up to six times more than the competitors. Aug 18, 2011 will my macbook pro read from a fat32 external drive.
Creates fat32 formatted drives including hdd, sdd, sd and memory cards. Hard drive format software for mac mac disk format software. In a nutshell, when we choose a program to format exfat to fat32 in windows 7810, we first should consider if it is suitable. Being portable software, there is no need to install it. And if you lost your important data because of formatting, you can use data recovery tool to recover data from a formatted usb drive on mac. I just recently bought my 6tb my book studio edittion ii wd hard drive.
In this post, you will get the recommended tool to help you do this conversion without formatting. Mar 31, 2020 when there is a need to convert ntfs to fat32, it is better for you to find free ntfs to fat32 converter. Even though format usb or flash drive software for mac is not available for download, there are plenty of alternative apps to format a flash drive on mac. The 4 disk formatting software for mac above can help you easily format hard drive, usb flash drive, memory card, and other storage media under mac os. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 in mac os x admfactory. Will my macbook pro read from a fat32 external drive. So i hooked it up to my vaio pc, running xp and formated it with powerquest partition magic to. Select the drive you want to format and click erase button. If you want to control ntfs drives fast then this is the software to get. Go to finder window in your mac, and then click on applications at the left hand side of your screen. Fat32 and exfat can be compatible with mac and windows and you can choose one after realizing their respective merits and defects based on your demands. While you cant select the fat32 file system in the regular windows 10 formatting tool, you can yet do it without any thirdparty software.
This software ensures that if there are data loss problems seen, upon formatting, these will be arrested and also whatever problems are there will get sorted out upon formatting. This fat32 formatter download is available on the provider website with a step by step guide on downloading and activating the formatter. Here we can find some free software to convert ntfs to fat32 easily. Dec 15, 2017 above steps also represents how to format exfat to fat32 in windows 10, windows 8 and windows xp.
I am wanting to format all 6tb to fat32 so i am able to use it on my playstation 3, along with my mac and pc. Many computer users who use a removable flash drive have the demand for formatting it to the fat32 file system. A modified version of the original linux code, this program is packaged as a easytouse installer. This will make it readable by both macs and microsoft windows computers. Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility. Find out how to format an external drive or usb disk making the drive work with both windows pc and mac can read and write.
You can format a fat32 usb drive on a mac using disk utility. When youre reformatting a hard drive, windows will ask you what format to use. In recent versions of windows 10, you will no longer see fat32 as the format option for drives that are larger than 32gb. As earlier stated, you need to first back up your usb drive before formatting the drive as you may not be able to recover the contents again. Well, why need you to format wd hard drive to fat32.
Disk utility gives you five different choices for drive formats in os x lion. Fat32 and ntfs are the most common formats, but whats the difference. Oct 29, 2019 mac devices on the other hand run on either mac os extended or apfs. Now, you can follow the steps to be highlighted below to get it successfully formatted. The disk manager tool is able to list all hard drives and external devices on your mac. If you need to format fat32 back to exfat when the need ever arises, please search help from usb exfat format tool. Next navigate to applications and select utilities, then select disk utility by doubleclicking on it. Format usb or flash drive software by sobolsoft is a piece of software that allows you to format your usb flash drive.
For the 32gb or smaller capacity model, use the windows formatting function. How to format usb drives larger than 32gb with fat32 on windows. But, you cant use the formatting tool if you would like to format fat32 windows 10. How to format drive with compatible file system for mac. This software can be used to format sony external hard disk also for ps1 and other devices before using the same. However when i format it to fat32 using wd drive manager on my mac it only formats about 2tb. Unlike windows os, mac os doesnt provide quick format tool. Here is the free software to convert ntfs to fat32 updated 2020. Jul 06, 2019 fat32 is one of the most popular and versatile file formats for a drive. Both windows and mac os x have full readwrite support for exfat drives without any additional thirdparty software. Fat32 has some serious limitationsindividual files can only be up to 4gb in size each, for examplebut exfat doesnt. Free software to format exfat to fat32 in windows 7.
Exfat software free download exfat top 4 download offers free software downloads for windows, mac, ios and android computers and mobile devices. It is time to learn how to format your external hard drive or other external drives to a common file system for mac and windows. Procedure to format on windows pc, for 8gb16gb32gb model plug micro vault to the computer. I have tried formating the drive with wd drive manager on my mac. Fat32 format is a simple, fast program for formatting hard drives and other storage media to the fat32 format. But luckily, there are file systems well supported by both mac and windows pc, and they are fat32 it might be called msdos on mac and exfat. For optimal performance with amcrest devices, a microsd card must class 10 or above and be properly formatted to fat32.
How to format usb flash drive to fat32 on mac os xmacos easeus. Miniaide fat32 formatter lets you format or create fully customizable partitions in any hard drive. Nov 26, 2011 in this video i go over how to format an external hard drive to fat 32 on a mac. Quickly format an external hard drive for mac and windows pc. In the eventuality that you would like to format a drive with a fat32 file system and prevent any potential performance issues or data loss, then perhaps you can consider giving fat32format gui a try. Then double click on utilities icon, which will appear at the screen along other applications you have installed in your computer. For apple mac users, the easier way to format usb flash drive to fat32 is using the disk utility. Disk utility in macos high sierra or later can erase most disks and volumes for mac using either the newer apfs apple file system format or the older mac os extended format, and it automatically chooses a compatible format for you.
Sd card formatter software free download are also available. With this tool, you can move partitions, resize partitions even the active one, copy partitions, as well as change the drive letter and label, check the partition for errors, delete and format partitions even with a custom cluster size, convert ntfs to fat32, hide partitions, and wipe all that data off of partitions. Aug 16, 2017 smartdisk fat32 format utility is a lightweight and portable software application that can do this on microsd cards over 32gb without any issues. Many people think it is hard to format the windows drive on macintosh. Here is the free software to convert ntfs to fat32. For instance, is the hard drive internal or external. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 in mac os x. Fat32 format free download fileplanet fat32 format. While exfat doesnt quite match fat32s compatibility, it is more widelycompatible than ntfs. In this video i go over how to format an external hard drive to fat 32 on a mac. Dec 04, 2017 download fat32format easily get your hard disk drive formatted in the fat32 system with the help of this lightweight but powerful software application. From all above, you can have a general idea of fat32 and exfat file system. It is compatible with various devices like dvd player, game console etc. Dec, 2019 if you are using a mac os and would like more information on how to properly format your microsd card click here.
Format your external drive with exfat for both mac and. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 on mac os xmacos. Formatting would erase data completely, make sure that you have a data backup. For the 64gb or larger capacity model, use the format software.
Name the formatted disk and choose either exfat or msdosfat32 from the. The best fat32 formatter to format sd cardusb drive. Select your usb flash drive on the sidebar, choose erase. How to format usb drives larger than 32gb with fat32 on. Free download western digital fat32 formatting tool for. For apple mac users, there are two ways to format usb flash drive to fat32, including disk utility and terminal command line. Then you can choose one of the hard drive and format it by click on format button. Here are two outstanding mac hard drive format software tools you can rely on.
Compare with the other commonly used ntfs file system on a flash drive, fat32 has a compatibility advantage across many operating systems. We here will show you the full guides on how to format fat32 and ntfs drives on mac as an example. This program allows macosx to access microsoft ntfs formatted harddrives connected by usb port. Fat32 file allocation table is a derivative of the file allocation table fat file system. When using a 64gb sd card or higher, it is important that you format the card to fat32 format if the card does not already come formatted in fat32. Use disk utility follow the steps to format fat32 with disk utility. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question. No worry, actually it is not impossible to realize it no matter you use an external or internal drive of your windows system. Includes tests and pc download for windows 32 and 64bit systems.
Its a portable app, so you wont need to install anything. When the sd card needs to be cleaned of everything on the card and the card is literally to get a new beginning, formatting is done. Apr 14, 2020 but luckily, there are file systems well supported by both mac and windows pc, and they are fat32 it might be called msdos on mac and exfat. Follow these steps to format a drive in fat32 in windows 10. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 in mac os atto digital. I have a 4tb gpt external usb hard drive that i need to format as fat32. Feb 21, 2020 how to format a usb flash drive with mac to fat32. External drive like wd elements, my book and my passport can be formatted to fat32 via this tool. Format my 6tb my book studio edition ii to fat32 external. Download fat32format easily get your hard disk drive formatted in the fat32 system with the help of this lightweight but powerful software application. However, it doesnt mean there is no way to get the job done. Jul 24, 2017 for whatever reason, the option to format usb drives larger than 32gb with the fat32 file system isnt present in the regular windows format tool.