How do I format a flash drive to work on other computers.

This may seem a silly question. When I write to a flash drive for the first time in my MacBook Pro, I cannot access the flash drive in my Microsoft laptop. If I write to a flash drive for the first time using my Microsoft laptop, I can switch back and forth (reading and writing) between computers.
Is there anything I can do when using a new flash drive to format it in my MacBook Pro to enable it to be accessed (both read and write) in my Microsoft laptop?

Format it FAT32 on a Windows PC. It will then be able to be read and written to on both systems.

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How do I format a Flash Drive to FAT16?

I was able to format a 2GB flash drive to FAT16 using Terminal, but I can't figure out how to format the 8GB drive into 4 partitions, FAT16. Too many arguments or not enough... can't seem to get the correct number.
Could someone please tell me what the command line would be? Thanks!

Started experimenting with a 4 GB DMG instead, initial results...
diskutil partitionDisk /Volumes/FAT16b MBRFormat "MS-DOS FAT16" "PART1" 1860M "MS-DOS FAT16" "PART2" 1860M
Started partitioning on disk disk7
$<3>Creating partition map
$<3>Formatting disk7s1 as MS-DOS (FAT16) with name PART1
$<3>Formatting disk7s2 as MS-DOS (FAT16) with name PART2
$<3>[ \ 0%..10%..20%..30%..40%..50%.......................... ]
Partitioning encountered error on disk disk7s2: The chosen size is not valid for the chosen filesystem (-9962)
Not sure why it gets half way through the second partition, even if I lower the values.

How do I format a flash drive to fat32

I need to reformat a flash drive to FAT32 and do not know how to do this. I am new to the OS environment, I just recently swithed from Windows to Macs

Flash drives normally are Fat32,
Open Disk Utility (Applications>Utilities), insert the Flash drive and select it. Go to the Erase Tab, set the format as MSDOS (FAT) and erase the drive.
If there is anything on this drive it will be erased.

How do i format a thumb drive to work with tiger and a pc

i want to transfer a video file from a pc to tiger but a pc formatted thumb drive isnt recognized in my ibook g4. how should i format my thumb drive

Perhaps the beginnings of an answer to your prob could be found in this thread, PD:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1731284&tstart=0
Personally, I have never had any probs at all with my G4/10.4.11 Powerbook (USB 1.1) seeing any USB drive, even those advertised as working with only 2.0 USB.
IMO, either your USB drive's FAT32 file structure is goofy (run Windows Scandisk & maybe even Defrag on the USB drive), or your Mac OS's USB systemfilestuff is gunked. Or your i's actual USB port(s) aren't working.
Do other USB drives work on your i? If so, the prob's your particular USB drive in question. If not, the prob's your Mac.
My 2 cents........

How can i get my audio files to work on other computers in powerpoint?

I have made a powerpoint presentation for a class. The task was to record ourselves speaking and import the audio files to go along with a slideshow presentation. I recorded in GarageBand and imported the files to iTunes and then into my presentation. The slideshow works on my computer, but once I try to play it on any other computer (both Mac and PC) the audio files are "unavailable" and don't play. What do I need to do so that the files can play?

I don't use PowerPoint much these days, but I found this...
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/embedded-and-linked-sound-file s-in-a-presentation-HA001230307.aspx
(It says to put the audio files in the same folder as the presentation file.)

How to format a flash drive on my mac book pro

I have a mac book pro, but at school they just use PC's. I need to be able to save my homework on my flash drive at home and bring it into class and open it up on the PC. The programs I am using are the Adobe Creative Suite (photoshop, illustrator, dreamweaver,etc.) and they will let you go back and forth between the mac and the PC. The problem is that I used my flash drive to save my homework, no problem, but after a while it didn't work anymore.
I was told at school, I needed format my flash drive(when it was new) on my mac and then it would be fine to go back and forth. My old flash drive that is messed up, they said just to re-format it on the mac and then it would be fine. How do you do either of those things? Sorry this is so wordy.

Does the older flash drive work on a PC still, cec? If not it may simply be defective. Flash drives can live a hard life!
You shouldn't need to reformat your new stick. I very much doubt that the failure of the old one has anything at all to do with the fact that it wasn't formatted on a Mac .
What OS are you using, by the way? Your various posts seem to say different things.
Just by the way many smaller/older memory sticks will be formatted as FAT-16 rather than FAT-32. Disk Utility , from memory , will actually automatically do this if the drive is under a certain size.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileAllocationTable#Future :
+FAT is still the normal file system for removable media (with the exception of CDs and DVDs), with FAT12 used on floppies, and FAT16 on most other removable media (such as flash memory cards for digital cameras and USB flash drives). Most removable media are not yet large enough to benefit from FAT32, although some larger flash drives, like SDHC, do make use of it. FAT16 is used on these drives for reasons of compatibility and size overhead.+
Cheers
Rod
Message was edited by: Rod Hagen

How can I format a flash (thumb) driver for windows?

I would like to know if I can format a flash drive for win32.......and if so, how do I do it?
TIA, Jack

Use the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder to format it as MS-DOS or exFAT.
(60445)

How to Create a Bootable Flash Drive to do a clean install of Lion. I have tried to use the InstallESD.dmg but it still will not do a clean install so that I do not have to do a reinstall from the Recovery (That just re downloads and takes over 6 hours)?

How to Create a Bootable Flash Drive to do a clean install of Lion. I have tried to use the InstallESD.dmg but it still will not do a clean install so that I do not have to do a reinstall from the Recovery (That just re downloads and takes over 6 hours)?
The system I'm have is a Mac-mini that had SL on it and no SuperDrive. I have also call Apple Support and they have really have not been to much help over 1st did my up grade to Lion and Installed the Lion Server.... it lost my SSL that I paid for and kill almost on of my server setting, plus kill all my web servers (using apache vhosts), and not to say the LDAP will even let remote users login to your laptops.
PS: There is no way that I'm going to buy a Install USB from Apple... They have over billed me over $300.00 because the Apps Store still has bugs (Glad I did not write that App/Service)
If there is anyone that can give in the information to create a USB install stick, I would be very thinkful.

Here you are bro, courtesy of "softpedia.com"....brilliant site!!!
If you ever had problems with your Mac OS X installation you know that the first thing you should do is to check the startup volume using Disk Utility.
After the check has ended and, if the errors exceed a certain level of seriousness, the Disk Utility application will require you to restart your Mac and use its Mac OS X Install disc counterpart.
Other users may have to reinstall OS X altogether, but will find, or already know, that their SuperDrive (a CD/DVD reader and write combo drive) is not functioning properly and it will not be able to read the Install disc.
Although this might happen to Mac OS X Leopard users due to faultyhardware, the vast majority of problematic SuperDrives will be encountered inside Snow Leopard running Macs.
This is due to the updated SuperDrive firmware included in either the Install disc or the software updates one has to install to reach the latest version of OS X, namely 10.6.6.
This can be fixed by flashing the SuperDrive’s stock firmware using free command line tools that one can find for free online (I will write about this process also, but at a later time because this article only focuses on allowing you to create your own alternative USB boot disc).
If you are reading this last bit of information with skepticism, than you should know that it happened to me too. Despite all my tries to make it work properly, the SuperDrive kept on munching any inserted DVDs and just popped them out in about twenty seconds.
The workaround to this issue was to create my own Leopard bootable USB memory stick. I am not suggesting a Snow Leopard bootable stick mainly because there are lots of users that have decided to buy the cheaper, Upgrade version, which I have not tested and, therefore, I’m not sure if it will work properly once written to a USB disk.
And now, here are the exact steps you should follow in order to obtain a fully bootable Leopard (or Lion) Install disc.
Step 1 (If you already have the Leopard install disc DMG file you can skip to Step 2)
Launch Disk Utility (you can find it inside /Applications/Utilities). Here select the Leopard Install disc in the list of drives on the left and click on the New Image menu entry at the top of the window. A save message will appear where you will have to select the Desktop as a destination.
Step 2
After Disk Utility has finished creating the Leopard DMG, insert your USB stick and erase all data and reformat the disk. To do this select the USB in the list of drives on the left and, after clicking on the Erase tab on the right side of the window, choose the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format and click the Erase button beneath.
Step 3
After the USB has been reformatted, download the SuperDuper app from HERE and launch it. Once SuperDuper starts, you will only have to select the DMG in the Copy drop-down menu, your USB memory stick on the right and hit the “Copy Now” button.
One can also use Disk Utility for this task but creating a bootable USB stick failed 2 out 4 times when copying the DMG to the stick (with the exact same settings each time). Creating the bootable stick using SuperDuper proved to be the perfect way to do it because it worked each of the 4 times I tested it.
The steps above can also be used to create a bootable Mac OS X Lion USB by using the InstallESD.dmg image you can find inside the Lion installer (named “Install Mac OS X Lion.app”) downloaded from the Mac App Store in the /Applications folder.
To locate the InstallESD.dmg right click the Lion installer, select the “Show Package Contents” entry, go inside the “Contents” folder, and from there into the “SharedSupport” folder. Inside this folder you can find the InstallESD.dmg you can use to create your own bootable Mac OS X Lion USB stick. To do so, go to the third step described above and use the InstallESD.dmg as the DMG to be copied to your USB disc.
That’s it! Once the process ends you will have a fully bootable Leopard (or Lion) USB disk that you can use as an alternative to the Apple’s DVD Install disc that comes bundled with all Macs.
To use your newly created bootable disk you will have to restart the Mac, press and hold the OPTION key until the StartupManager appears. Here, select the Mac OS X Install disk using your keyboard arrows and press return to start from the selected drive.

How to download data to flash drive in USB port

this seems like it would be a simple basic thing to do....

How is the flash drive formatted? What disk format is required by your synthesizer? I'm thinking you probably need to use a PC format - NTFS or FAT. OS X cannot write to an NTFS formatted drive, but it can write to one formatted FAT (MSDOS.) If you can use the latter, then you need to format the flash drive. This is not straight-forward on the Mac as it would be on a PC.
Put the flash drive in a USB port on your Mac and open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your flash drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list.Click on the Partition tab in the Disk Utility main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to MBR then click on the OK button. Set the format type to MSDOS. Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Check the status and be sure it shows Format type: as MSDOS. If not, then repeat Steps 2 and 3.
Try the flash drive now.

How can I use a flash drive on IMac?

How can I use a flash drive on my IMac? I can't open or send files to it.

Des it show up in Disk Utility? If it does, then you have to format it as Mac OS Extended *jounaled) so that you can write to it.
Please also let us know what model iMac you have.

How Do You Test a Flash Drive for Errors Using OS X?

HI. In Windows there are Flash Drive tester that tests if there's something wrong with the Flash drive's chips. How do you test a flash drive for errors on OS X? I bought the HP v220w which is tiny for a 16GB and it's metal. The whole thing goes into the plug. Design wise, it is great, it's very elegant like a jewelry. Thanks in advance.
Gbu.

Format it for OS X and run a surface scan on the partition. That should show any hardware problems that don't keep it from working altogether.

How do I format an external drive with mountain lion?

How do I format an external drive with mountain lion?

Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
select the external drive in the left pane
partition and format in the right pane

How do I see the flash drive?

I have a flash drive plugged into the computer. I see its icon in the Sidebar. But it would be more convenient if I could see its icon on the Desktop. How do I get the flash drive to appear on the Desktop?

Finder -> Preferences -> General. Checkmark to show external disks. That should do it.
Regards.

I am trying to transfer a power point from my mac to a flash drive to work on a pc? Can't figure out how to get it to work

can anyone help me get my power point from my mac to a flash drive to work on a pc?

And make sure the flash drive is formatted as FAT32. The PC won't read anything from a Mac OS formatted drive, and your Mac can't write to a NTFS (Windows) formatted drive.
If both the Mac and PC support it, exFAT is also possible and allows for larger file sizes.

How to boot from USB flash drive - Portege R500

Hi,
I have a Portege R500 running Windows XP, brought about 2 years ago, and recently contracted a worm virus that has infected some of the start up files as the minute I log in it logs out again, even in safe mode! Quickest way I can think of sorting it is to reformat it with the XP recovery disc and reinstall windows.
Problem!! The CD/DVD drive on the laptop stopped working a while ago, have tried pretty much everything in the thread on this site but had no luck.
So my plan was to boot from a USB flash drive and do it that way. However in the boot settings I only have the options of HDD / FDD / CD-ROM / LAN, neither of these will work. Does anyone know how to boot from USB flash drives?
Any help would be really appreciated

Hi
As far as I know it should be possible to boot from USB FDD
Im not sure if you would be able to boot from USB flash drive but its definitely worth a try
Generally you could try to press F12 button when notebook powers up.
Then a boot menu should appear on the display and you should see all bootable devices.
PS: As far as I know the USB booting was available in ToshibaHWSetup (Toshiba tool which changes the BIOS settings in windows OS.) Therefore I assume booting from USB should be possible.
Greets

How do I format a flash drive to work on other computers.

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