How to Format USB Drive for Mac & PC

Small "Universal Serial Bus" (USB) drives are very convenient for carrying around data. Since both Mac and PCs have USB ports, pictures and music files can be quickly and efficiently put onto a small USB drive and transferred between the two computers. Formatting a small USB drive with the Windows-based Fat 32 file format will let the drive work on both Macs and PCs with equal ease. The Fat 32 formatting can be done on a Mac or on a PC and does not require any additional software.

Things You'll Need

• Macintosh or Windows-based computer
• USB drive

Instructions

Formatting USB Drive for Mac and PC on a Mac

1. Insert the USB drive into a USB port on the Mac. Double-click to open the "Applications" folder inside of the Mac's hard drive. Double-click to open the "Utilities" folder. Double-click to run the Disk Utility program that comes with the Mac.

2. Click on the icon of the USB drive in the left column of the Disk Utility program. Select the "Erase" tab at the top of the Disk Utility program. Select "MS-DOS (FAT)" from the drop-down menu next to "Format." Name the USB drive in the open column below Format."

3. Click on the "Erase" button at the lower right corner of the Disk Utility program. Click on the "Erase" button in the window that appears. Wait as Disk Utility formats the USB drive so that it can be used on both Macintosh computers and PCs.

4. Quit the Disk Utility program when the USB drive has been formatted. Drag the icon of the USB drive from the desktop to the Trash icon. Remove the USB drive that has been formatted for use on Mac and PCs from the USB port of the Macintosh.

Formatting USB Drive for Mac and PC on a PC

1. Insert the USB drive into a USB port on the PC. Click on "Start," "MyComputer" and locate the icon of the USB drive under "Devices with Removable Storage."

2. Right-click on the icon of the USB drive and select "Format" from the drop-down menu.

3. Select "Fat32" from the drop-down menu that is below the "File System" tab in the new window that appears. Name the USB drive in the open column below the "Volume label" tab.

4. Click on the "Start" button at the bottom of the window. Click "OK" on the "Format" window that appears. Click on the "Format complete" window that appears.

5. Right-click on the USB drive and select "Eject." Remove the USB drive that has been formatted for use on Mac and PCs from the USB port of the PC.

Tips & Warnings

• Clean off the ends of the USB drive with a rough clean cloth to remove any loose dirt or dust from the contact.

• The Fat32 file system has a limitation of around 4 gigabytes in size.

References

• Indiana University: In Mac OS X, what is Disk Utility, and how do I use it?
• Simple Help: How to format a USB thumb drive in Windows

Resources

• Wellesley College: How to use a USB flash drive