Are you looking for a secure way to format USB to FAT32 on Mac? You are at the right place. Follow here, you can find two methods that will assist you in doing so on your storage device. And if you lost data during the formatting, reliable Mac file recovery software is ready to help anytime:
- Method 1: Format USB flash drive in Windows Explorer. This is the easiest way format USB flash drive to FAT32, exFAT or NTFS. Go ahead and plug your USB disk to a PC which is running Windows so that it can be recognized by system. Step 1 Open File Explorer to find the USB drive, right-click on it and select 'Format'. This will open a dialog box.
- To resolve the issue, please convert the USB Drive format from NTFS to FAT32. Note: The steps below will format the USB Drive. Please make sure you have back up the files. Right click Computer then click Manage. 2. Click Disk Management 3. Choose your USB Drive, right click the mouse and choose Format.
Put the memory stick into your computer(duh!) open command prompt ( start all programs accesories command promt. Or start run cmd) type: format x: /fs:FAT PLEASE NOTE X IS WHERE YOU MEMORY STICK IS LOCATED WHERE THE X IS YOU SHOULD PUT THE LETTER OF YOU MEMORY STICK IN MY CASE E; AND PLEASE DO NOT ACCIDENTLY FORMAT YOUR HARD DRIVE ITS NOT MY FAULT IF YOU FORMAT. Oct 16, 2020 My drive letter was D, so I entered format /FS:FAT32 D. Press Enter, make sure your USB drive.
Workable Solutions | Step-by-step Troubleshooting |
---|---|
Method 1. Use Disk Utility | Connect USB to Mac > Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility > Select USB and click 'Erase'..Full steps |
Method 2. Use Terminal Command | Connect USB to Mac > Hit cmd + space keys > Type terminal and hit Enter..Full steps |
Bonus Tip. Recover Formatted Data | If you lost data due to formatting, run EaseUS file recovery software > Scan and recover formatted data..Full steps |
How to Format a USB Flash Drive with Mac to FAT32
Computer users who use a USB might have the demand for formatting it to the FAT32 file system. Compare with the other commonly used NTFS file system on a flash drive, FAT32 has a compatibility advantage across many operating systems.
It's a universal format that is compatible with Mac OS X/macOS, Windows, Linux, and DOS systems. So, if users anticipate using the flash drive with more than one operating system, they will definitely benefit from the FAT32 file system. For Apple Mac users, there are two ways to format a USB flash drive to FAT32, namely Disk Utility and Terminal command line. Below are the detailed steps of the FAT32 format with both methods.
Method 1. Format FAT32 on Mac [Disk Utility]
To format USB to FAT32 with Disk Utility will erase all data on the flash drive, so before you doing so, please do remember to check whether you have saved useful data to another secure device in advance.
To format the USB drive to FAT32, follow the next steps:
Step 1. Connect the USB flash drive to your Mac computer.
Step 2. Go to Applications >Utilities > Double click and open Disk Utility.
Step 3. Select your USB flash drive on the sidebar, choose Erase.
Step 4. Rename the USB flash drive (optional).
Step 5. Choose the format as MS-DOS (FAT) for Format, Master Boot Record for Scheme. Then click Erase.
Wait for the process to complete, then you'll get an empty new USB flash drive with FAT32 as the file system. You can use it for saving data again.
Method 2. Format FAT32 on Mac [Terminal Command Line]
The command-line behavior does the same way to erase data with the Disk Utility. Again, create a backup before taking this action.
To format FAT32 on Mac with Terminal, follow the next steps:
Step 1. Connect the USB flash drive to your Mac computer.
Step 2. Hit cmd + space to run Spotlight, type: terminal, and hit Enter.
Step 3. Type: diskutil list and find out which disk is your USB drive.
Step 4. Type: sudo diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 MBRFormat /dev/disk2.
- sudo gives you user right.
- Diskutil calls disk utility program.
- eraseDisk commands to format.
- FAT32 sets the file system.
- MBRFormat tells disk utility to format with a Master Boot Record.
- /dev/disk2 is the location of the USB drive.
Wait for the process to complete. After this, you can type 'diskutil list' in the command again to check if the formatting has been successful.
Bonus Tip: How to Recover Data from Formatted USB
Formatting the USB would erase the data on it completely, so please make sure that you have a backup. If you don't, you can count on data recovery software to retrieve the lost data. Fl studio amazon.
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard has both Windows and Mac versions, so it's a good choice for data recovery, no matter you're using a PC or Mac. For Mac users, it only takes a few clicks for the software to scan and display the formatted data. To guarantee an effective data recovery without spending money to no avail, you can install the Mac data recovery free version for the first trial. You can preview all the found data before the final recovery.
To recover data from a formatted USB flash drive on Mac, follow the next steps:
Change man voice to girl. Step 1. Correctly connect your USB flash drive to your Mac. Launch EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac. Start selecting the flash drive and click 'Scan' to let the software search lost files on it.
Step 2. After a quick scan and deep scan, all files will be presented in the left panel in the scan results.
Step 3. Select files you want to recover and click the 'Recover Now' button. Don't save the recoverable files to the USB drive itself in case of data overwriting.
Format Usb To Fat32 Command Line
USB drives are most commonly used today in all aspects of the daily life. For USB drives, FAT32 is the 1st-choice file system due to its outstanding compatibility. In this article, I will show you four Windows built-in USB format tools to format USB drive quickly.
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Read the postWarning: Formatting will lead to data loss on the selected drive, make sure you have the latest backup before you proceed.
Option 1: Format with PowerShell
See how to format USB to FAT32 by using Windows PowerShell:
Step 1. Click the Windows Search bar and type 'powershell'. From the best match, run Windows PowerShell as Administrator.
Step 2. Next, type 'get-disk | get-partition' to let PowerShell show all your disk partition information. At this time, please pay attention to find the drive letter of the USB drive you want to format to FAT32.
Step 3. In this step, you need to type 'format-volume -driveletter F -filesystem FAT32 -newfilesystemlabel TECHSCSI'. Please take care that you need to change the drive letter to your owns and the file system label to your preference.
Step 4. Imovie cut video iphone. Finally, type 'exit' to leave PowerShell.
Tip: Using Windows built-in USB format tools, you are able to format partitions smaller than 32 GB to FAT32. To overcome, use top-rated free partition manager instead.
Option 2: Format via CMD
If you are more familiar with Command Prompt, here you can follow this easy guide to format USB drive:
Step 1. From Windows Search menu, type 'cmd' and run Command Prompt with administrator privilege.
Format Usb To Fat32 Linux
Step 2. Now do the followings:
- Type 'diskpart' and hit Enter;
- Type 'list volume' and hit Enter; Meanwhile, identify the volume number of your USB drive.
- Type 'select volume volumenumber' and press the Enter key.
- Type 'format fs=fat32 quick' where quick is optional and then press Enter.
- Type 'exit' and press Enter to leave diskpart. Repeat to leave command prompt.
Option 3: Format through File Explore
For most average users, they are likely to format USB to FAT32 through File Explorer. Here is what they did in order to format:
Step 1. Right click This PC (named My Computer in Windows 7 and the earlier versions) to show Devices and Drives connected to your computer.
Step 2. Find the USB drive you want to format to FAT32. Right-click on it and choose 'Format…' from the context menu.
Step 3. In the new emerging window, make sure you are select FAT32 as the target file system. You can also customize the allocation unit size as well as the volume label before your continue.
Step 4. Click 'Start' to proceed.
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Read the postOption 4: Format in Disk Management
Finally, it is also very easy if you try to format in Disk Management – a build-in disk management tool that can resolve a lot of hard disk issues without reboot.
Step 1. Press Win + X to call out the power user menu.
Step 2. From the disk map, right-click on the USB drive to be formatted and choose 'Format…'
Step 3. You may see or not see the warning message as the image shows under, depending on whether the USB drive is and Active Partition or not. Whatever, to format, click 'Yes' to confirm.
Step 4. Now, set your volume label, the file system (as FAT32), the allocation unit size if you want a larger cluster size (otherwise, just keep the default settings) and hit 'OK'. By doing this, Windows will warn you all data on the drive will be erased. To format USB drive to FAT32, click 'OK' and wait for Disk Management to finish.
Format Usb To Fat32 Cmd
Note: When your USB drive has FAT32 file system, you are likely to see 'file too large for USB' error when copying or moving large files to the USB, as the maximum file size FAT32 support is 4GB. To overcome, NTFS and exFAT are two good choices on Windows operating system.
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