A1) In most Windows systems while formatting a USB Stick/Flash Drive, file system choices are presented to you – NTFS, FAT, FAT32 or exFAT. FAT or FAT 32 file system is the option selected by default for formatting a USB flash drive. The two ways in which you can format your USB Flash Drive are:
Most external hard drives and USB drives are compatible for use on Mac computers as long as you format the devices for use with Mac OS X. USB drives can be formatted on your Mac using the Disk Utility application. Format the USB device for the Tesla (Mac) Mac users do not need to use any special tools to format the device. Simply delete the device with the disk utility, selecting the MS-DOS (FAT) setting. You can also name the device with an appropriate name. Under the “ External ” column, left-click on the USB stick you wish to format on your Mac PC and then click on the “ Erase ” button: Find the USB stick that you want to format and then click on “Erase” to clear it.
USB flash drives are the little stick-like devices that we carry along in our pockets as portable external storage. But these little devices pack quite a punch; they can double up as your mobile movie library, photo collection, backup drive, OS boot volume, or just a way to transfer stuff from one computer to another. Each time you wish to use them for a unique purpose, it requires cleaning them and sometimes even formatting them to a file system suited to the target environment. Formatting is also a good way to rid the memory stick of unwanted errors or virus/malware programs.
One important thing to remember is always taking a backup of your data before beginning the formatting a USB drive procedure.
When it comes to formatting a USB drive, which format should you go for – FAT or NTFS? Or any other? Moreover, how can you change the format of your USB drive from FAT to NTFS to exFAT or FAT32? Let’s answer these questions one at a time.
Which file system should I choose for formatting my USB Drive?
When it comes to formatting a USB drive, which format should you go for – FAT or NTFS? Or any other? Moreover, how can you change the format size of your USB drive from FAT to NTFS to exFAT or FAT32? Let’s answer these questions one at a time.
In most Windows systems, while formatting a USB 4 file system choices are presented to you – NTFS, FAT, FAT32 or exFAT. You should choose one that suits your USB purpose as well as target environment. Additionally, here are the benefits of each of these file systems to help you make your choice.
Benefits of NTFS file system
If you select NTFS file system, you get:
Benefits of FAT / FAT32 file system
Note: For USB flash drives with capacity larger than 32GB, FAT / FAT32 formatting option is not available.
If you select FAT or FAT32 file system:
Benefits of exFAT file system
If you select exFAT file system, you get:
So if you’re USB flash drive which has a capacity greater than 32GB, you should select NTFS or exFAT. Other than that, you should choose the format that suits your work. For example, if you use the USB on multiple operating systems, going for FAT would be better.
How to format USB Flash Drive to FAT / FAT32 / NTFS / exFAT using Windows Explorer?
FAT or FAT 32 file system is the option selected by default for formatting a USB flash drive on Windows XP. FAT or FAT32 is also the default file system most music players in cars recognise. So if on plugging your USB into your car’s music player you’ve faced an error saying – “cannot read”, check its file system and change it.
Here’s the procedure to format USB Drive to NTFS / FAT / FAT32 / exFAT:
Step 1: Plug in the memory stick into your computer and allow it to be detected. Once it is recognised, you should see an Autoplay dialogue box pop up asking you to choose the next action. If it doesn’t appear, you can open My Computer and see if the USB is detected as a newly mounted volume. You can also find the USB under Disk Drives in Device Manager (right-click on My Computer -> Manage).
Step 2: Right-click on the USB drive shown in My Computer and select “Format”. This will open a dialogue box displaying the formatting options.
Step 3: Select the desired file system from NTFS, FAT, FAT32 or exFAT from the “File System” drop-down, then punch in the name that you wish to assign to the USB drive under “Volume label” and also select a “Format option”.
Reformat Usb Stick On Mac
Step 4: Once you’ve made sure all options are correct, and you have a backup of the important data on the USB, click on “Start” to initiate the process. When prompted, click on “Ok” to confirm that you wish to erase the data on the drive and format it.
Reformat Usb Stick Windows 10How to format USB Drive to NTFS / exFAT / FAT / FAT32 using Command Prompt?
Select all command mac. Step 1: Plug in the memory stick into your computer and allow it to be detected.
Step 2: Open Command Prompt (Start -> Accessories -> Command Prompt or Start -> Run -> type “cmd” -> Enter)
Step 3 : Supposing your USB drive is assigned the letter “E”: type the following command in the Command Prompt:
For FAT: format E: /fs:FAT
For FAT32: format E: /fs:FAT32 For NTFS: format E: /fs:NTFS For exFAT: format E: /fs:EXFAT
Step 4 : When prompted, press Y (for Yes) or N (for No) to continue or stop the formatting.
Things to remember when formatting to NTFS
When formatting to NTFS file system, you need to remember to enable the “removal policy” of the USB to the “better performance” option. Here’s how to do this:
You have formatted your USB drive successfully! Great! Now What if you want to again get back your precious photos, audios or videos???
The best possible solution to go for will be to download and run Stellar Photo Recovery Software. The addedbenefit of keeping Stellar Photo Recovery Software in your system is that you can take a backup of your entire drive. The top menu bar of the main screen section of the software includes a ‘Create Image‘ option which is used to create an image of your entire drive. This image can be used as a backup for recovering data at a later stage. To recover back your multimedia files, if lost accidentally, you can try the demo version of the software absolutely free:
Final Words
Hope our pointers above will help you the next time you need to format your memory stick. Always remember to backup your data before beginning the formatting process and choose a file system that suits your requirement. However, if you want to recover data from a corrupt or inaccessible USB drive, read our next post.
WBFS or Wii Backup File System is a kind of file system developed by Wii homebrew coders kwiirk and Waninkoko. It creates a kind of WBFS partition on any SD or USB device using Waninkoko’s cIOS. WBFS system can be bought in use to format a drive on Mac as well. All you need for this purpose is a bit of knowledge about this system and instructions for formatting. If you currently have WBFS on your Mac and you wish to format a drive with it, the following steps can be followed:-
How to Format a Hard Drive to WBFS on Mac1. Conditions before Beginning:-
Before beginning the formatting approach for your Mac, let me tell you that the drive is able to read Wiki data only when it is formatted to WBFS with a USB loader. The formatting process also includes you to connect the device, open utilities and then find disk utility to format a particular drive.
2. Connect the USB device now:-
In order to format a particular drive with Mac, you will first need to connect the USB device to the dedicated port of your Mac. There is an application folder in every version of Mac which can be opened in order to locate utilities. You have to click this folder of applications in order to open utilities in your Mac.
3. Double click the disk utility:-
After reaching utilities, make a double click on disk utility and then click the drive that you will like to format or erase from left column. Click erase tab on the right and then set the volume format to “MS DOS (FAT)”. Click “apply” after making the desired changes.
4. Creating a partition:-
Sometimes some people wish to make a partition in their drive after formatting it, such people can click the partition tab in order to make two partitions within their drive after formatting it. You will find this tab on the right side of your Mac screen.
Reformat Usb Stick
i) Reach the “volume scheme” option. You will see a drop down menu under it. Choose the number of partitions for your drive here.
ii.) Select the partition for Wii. The partition size can be adjusted dragging the handles which depict partition borders. You can also type the size manually in this approach.
iii.) Now click options, select “Master Boot Record” and then select “MS-DOS (FAT)”. In the drop-down menu of your Mac screen. Now you can name the partitions so created and then you can click “Apply” in order to save the changes made using this approach.
5. Formatting Multiple Devices:-
Every time you wish to format a USB device or you wish to make it partitioned, you will have to follow the same approach that we told you in the earlier steps. If the process fails to be accomplished in any case, you should check the settings of your Mac or you should seek for help from a professional.
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