Up next in 10
Choosing the best format to work between Macs and PCs with a flash drive.
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:09
hey everyone today I'm going to show you
0:10
how you can format a USB flash drive to
0:12
be compatible with both Mac OS 10 and
0:16
windows and be able to fully function
0:18
between both so in this case we're going
0:20
to be working with a 2 GB USB stick and
0:24
it's just a standard one like you buy in
0:25
the store so to work with this flash
0:28
drive we're going to have to do is go
0:31
into dis utility so I'm going to open up
0:33
a new finder window and from here I'm
0:35
going to go to Macintosh HD then
0:39
applications and then scroll down to
0:41
utilities and in utilities will be dis
0:45
utility and I can open that up so in dis
0:48
utility on the sidebar you have all your
0:50
connected drives so I'm just going to
0:52
select this in this case the 2.12 GB
0:55
flash dis media and this is the USB
1:00
flash drive we're working with now to
1:02
first of all see what format your flash
1:05
drive is in you're going to want to
1:06
select the partition tab when you pick
1:09
up a USB it'll probably come in one of
1:12
two formats and that is fat 32 which
1:16
this one is or
1:18
NTFS so if your flash drive is in the
1:21
NTFS format you're going to have an
1:23
issue and that is that you cannot write
1:26
files to it from Mac OS 10 it'll work
1:29
fine with window windows but if you're
1:31
trying to use it between both you won't
1:32
be able to write files from your maap so
1:35
in that case you'll definitely want to
1:38
format it so to format the flash drive
1:41
we're going to click on the erase Tab
1:43
and from here we see a whole bunch of
1:45
different formats if we click on this
1:47
menu now first of all we have Mac OS
1:50
extended journal and this is the
1:53
standard Mac OS 10 format and this is
1:57
great if you're only working with Macs
1:59
but if you're to be working with PCS as
2:01
well you don't want to choose this
2:03
because windows cannot write to diss
2:06
that are in the format of Mac OS
2:08
extended so we also have MS Doss fat
2:12
which is probably the best option you
2:13
can choose this is the fat 32 file
2:16
system and it's great because it works
2:19
with almost every device you could ever
2:21
think of uh be IT cameras any computers
2:24
it doesn't matter it'll most likely work
2:27
with a fat 32 formatted drive now the
2:31
only thing you might want to be aware of
2:33
if you use this is if you tend to use
2:36
the versions tool in Macos 10 lion the
2:39
fat 32 file system does not support that
2:42
so you won't be able to use it and fat
2:44
32 also has a limit of 4 GB file sizes
2:48
so you can't put anything bigger than
2:49
that on there and last we have xat which
2:53
is a newer file system and the nice
2:55
thing about this is you can put files on
2:59
it over 4 GB but the only problem is it
3:02
only works on newer computers so one's
3:05
running Macos 10.6.3 or later as well as
3:10
Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later so
3:14
it's not a lot of compatibility with
3:16
Aller machines which is why if you're
3:18
going to be working between Macs and PCs
3:21
it's best to choose MS DOS fat which is
3:23
the fat 32 operating system then from
3:26
there you can name it and we'll name
3:27
this 2 gigabytes and then I can erase
3:31
the dis and this will format it for me
3:35
and erase it with the fat 32 file system
3:40
so of course now if I go under partition
3:42
you can see that it has the name and the
3:45
format which is Ms do fat otherwise
3:48
known as fat 32 and now your flash drive
3:51
will be fully prepared to work on both
3:53
Macs and PCs and it will be in the
3:56
correct format so there you go there's
3:58
how to format a USB flash drive to work
4:02
on both Macs and PCs if you have
4:04
anything that you'd like to see me do a
4:06
Hu on regarding either iOS or Mac OS 10
4:09
make sure to send me an email I hope you
4:11
found this video useful and thank you
4:12
for watching
Computer Drives & Storage
Software
Operating Systems
Science