Aug 16, 2019 In this guide, we show you virtually every method to format a USB flash drive and quickly erase its contents or fix data corruption and other issues using Windows 10's built-in tools. Dec 13, 2019 First, let’s see how to format an external hard drive or USB drive in macOS which works with both Mac and PC platforms, first plug-in your drive in macOS machine. Open Disk Utility on your macOS, press cmd + spacebar keys and type Disk Utility in the spotlight search. Jan 02, 2016 Either way, you’ll want to format your drive accordingly. Formatting an external drive on your Mac is quite easy, though it isn’t as evident and obvious as it is on a PC. You can format a drive in OS X using two applications: Disk Utility and Terminal. Aug 17, 2018 Now format the drive with FAT or NTFS file system. Type 'format fs=ntfs' and press Enter. STEP 8: Assign a Drive Letter. Assigning a drive letter. To assign a drive letter, you can type 'assign. On macOS, you can simply use macOS Recovery to wipe your drive. There are plenty of other live operating systems you can use to wipe your primary drive, but those two examples are the simplest.
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Disk Utility User Guide
Disk Utility on Mac supports several file system formats:
Apple File System (APFS): The file system used by macOS 10.13 or later.
Mac OS Extended: The file system used by macOS 10.12 or earlier.
MS-DOS (FAT) and ExFAT: File systems that are compatible with Windows.
Apple File System (APFS)
Apple File System (APFS), the default file system for Mac computers using macOS 10.13 or later, features strong encryption, space sharing, snapshots, fast directory sizing, and improved file system fundamentals. While APFS is optimized for the Flash/SSD storage used in recent Mac computers, it can also be used with older systems with traditional hard disk drives (HDD) and external, direct-attached storage. macOS 10.13 or later supports APFS for both bootable and data volumes.
APFS allocates disk space within a container on demand. The disk’s free space is shared and can be allocated to any of the individual volumes in the container as needed. If desired, you can specify reserve and quota sizes for each volume. Each volume uses only part of the overall container, so the available space is the total size of the container, minus the size of all the volumes in the container.
Choose one of the following APFS formats for Mac computers using macOS 10.13 or later.
APFS: Uses the APFS format.
APFS (Encrypted): Uses the APFS format and encrypts the volume.
APFS (Case-sensitive): Uses the APFS format and is case-sensitive to file and folder names. For example, folders named “Homework” and “HOMEWORK” are two different folders.
APFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted): Uses the APFS format, is case-sensitive to file and folder names, and encrypts the volume. For example, folders named “Homework” and “HOMEWORK” are two different folders.
You can easily add or delete volumes in APFS containers. Each volume within an APFS container can have its own APFS format—APFS, APFS (Encrypted), APFS (Case-sensitive), or APFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted).
Mac OS Extended
Choose one of the following Mac OS Extended file system formats for compatibility with Mac computers using macOS 10.12 or earlier.
Format External Hard Drive For Mac
Mac OS Extended (Journaled): Uses the Mac format (Journaled HFS Plus) to protect the integrity of the hierarchical file system.
Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted): Uses the Mac format, requires a password, and encrypts the partition.
Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled): Uses the Mac format and is case-sensitive to folder names. For example, folders named “Homework” and “HOMEWORK” are two different folders.
Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted): Uses the Mac format, is case-sensitive to folder names, requires a password, and encrypts the partition.
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Windows-compatible formats
Format Drive For Macos On Pc Mac
Choose one of the following Windows-compatible file system formats if you are formatting a disk to use with Windows.
MS-DOS (FAT): Use for Windows volumes that are 32 GB or less.
ExFAT: Use for Windows volumes that are over 32 GB.
Format Drive For Mac Os On Pc Laptop Dual Boot
See alsoPartition schemes available in Disk Utility on MacAbout Disk Utility on Mac