How to format MS-DOS (FAT) to Mac OS??

I need to format an MS-DOS (FAT) partition to Mac OS....
How do i do this in Disk Utility? It won't read the MS-DOS.. and renames  it disk1s2..

Well actually i was trying to reformat it from MS-DOS to Mac OS. My Boot Camp partition somehow formated my external hard drive and while i can access my files in Windows, ofc i am not able to use it in OS X. So what i did was, luckily i had enough space for a new Mac OS partition that i can transfer my files too. Can you possibly help me with Windows? There is this common annoying thing, it won't give me permission to change my new Mac OS partition nor  the MS-DOS partition :/. I've experinced this before, but if i can just find out how to get permission i can copy the files and delete the MS-DOS . Please don't respond telling me about restore function in DU, no offence of course .

Similar Messages

  • I have tried to format my HDD from MS-DOS fat to MAC OS Extended (jurnaled) but after formating turns to the same MS-DOS FAT format why?

    I have tried to format my HDD from MS-DOS fat to MAC OS Extended via disk utility but after formating turns to the same MS-DOS FAT format why?my current OS is 10.5

    You will need to perform an Internet Recovery or be able to boot the computer using a Snow Leopard 10.6.3 or later DVD. For the former:
    Restart the computer and at the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-OPTION-R keys until you see a globe appear in the gray startup screen. This may take a little while so be patient. You need to have an internet connection for this to work - preferably using Ethernet.
    After a fairly long period of time - 15 minutes or more - the recovery screen will appear. Select Disk Utility from the main menu, and click on the Continue button.
    1. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
    2. 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 GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
    3. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
    4. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
    5. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
    6. After formatting is done quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Install OS X from the main menu and click on the Continue button. Follow the onscreen instructions to install OS X onto the internal drive.

  • Why won't my newly formatted MS-DOS(Fat) Hard drive work on my windows computer?

    I just bought a Macbook Pro. I understood that to make my old hard drive work with the Mac, I needed to format it to MS-DOS(fat). I also understood that this format was supposed to allow it to work in windows as well. However, after formatting to MS-DOS(fat), my hard drive will no longer become visible on my windows laptop. It makes a noise when I plug it in or take it out, but nothing pops up, and while I am able to find my hard drive in the management section - I am unable to edit it in any way except for disabling it. I cannot access any files. This is problematic for me as the computers used at university are not Macsle
    Can anyone please help me?

    If I were you, I'd format the drive on the Windows side as NTFS. Then use the $20 Paragon NTFS software to be able to read and write to the volume.
    Clinton

  • How to format an external drive for mac AND pc use

    i want to format my external drive so i can use it on my mac and on pc's as well. i've gathered that the MS-DOS format is the way to go. my question is this: would this create any problems for my mac then?
    can i partion one part for ms-dos and part for macos extended?
    cheers
    -j-

    MS-DOS format (or FAT32) will be fine for both Mac and PC. However there is a 4GB file size limit with FAT32.
    You could use a dual partition, however the HFS+ partition would not be readable by the PC unless you installed the third party MacDrive.
    Look at this page for more information on a dual partition drive for Mac and Windows.
    http://macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030613121738812
    iFelix

  • How to format an external hard disk Mac Os Extended (Journaled)?

    hello
    I connect an external hard disk (2.5' IDE Western Digital Scorpio Blue, WD2500BEVE) via USB or FireWire to my Mac mini. The Disk Utility tool shows an external disk drive of 128 GB - but the disk has 250 GB. How can I format the external USB/Firewire-harddisk 250 GB "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"?
    I tried also to format the disk on a Windows PC (Windows XP). But I could not find a software to format "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)".
    Any hints on this? Thanks in advance for any feedback!

    andreasmarx wrote:
    As I use theses hard disks in a external hard disk case, I'm asking me whether my hard disk cases do not support more that 128 GB disk capacity. Is that realistic?
    It is not only realistic but probably the reason your Mac cannot see more than 128 GB of the capacity of the drives mounted in them. It has nothing to do with the interface between the Mac & case (like Firewire) but instead with the controller in the case that connects the raw ATA drive to that interface. Older ATA standards used a 28 bit LBA (logical block address) scheme to access the disk. For 512 bytes per sector this works out to a maximum of 128 GB of addressable disk capacity. The ATA-6 standard, also called Ultra-ATA/100 or just ATA-100, increased the bits in the address space from 28 to 48, with a disk capacity limit of 2 petabytes.
    ATA-6 was introduced in 2001, so any external drive case made before then for ATA drives will be forever limited to 128 G. Even now, some come with a controller that does not support the ATA-6 standard, & essentially none have all the hardware to support its full 48 bits of address capacity. However, since 2 PB (2000 terabyte) drives won't be available anytime soon, all you really need is a case that is ATA-6 or better compliant & supports enough address bits for the largest drive you intend ever to put in it.
    Case makers don't usually make this information easily available but many now include a "bullet" spec about the maximum capacity their case supports, typically rounded off to simple numbers like 320 GB, 500 GB, or whatever. If you can't find this info, you can assume that the newer the case the more likely it is to support larger capacity drives, or just buy one with a good return policy & test it yourself with the largest raw drive you own.

  • How to format iPod Nano on a Mac but for a PC

    WE got my dad an iPod nano. It's an 8 gb. He did not have a computer so we were loading up for him on our Macbook. Now he has a PC that uses Windows and he's got high speed internet. He downloaded iTunes and wants to control his iPod himself now. However, the Nano is formated for a Mac and won't work on his computer.
    Can I re-format the nano using my MacBook? I need to re-format it to work on his computer. I was unable to do anything with it on his computer last night.

    Here's what I want to do: using my MacBook, I want to re-format or "restore" the ipod nano to work on a PC using Windows.
    You cannot. When you Restore on iTunes for Mac, it will format the iPod with HFS+, which Windows cannot read.
    When you Restore with iTunes for Windows, it will format it FAT32, which will work iTunes for Macs or Windows.
    So Restore it with iTunes for Windows and then you can use it with either computer. It will only take a few minutes to Restore it.

  • How to Format Toshiba Hard-Drive for Mac with Parallels?

    Hello,
    I recently bought a Toshiba Hard-Drive with the following features:
    500GB
    It is a Canivo Basics 3.0
    It is USB 3.0 and 2.0 portable hard drive
    It has already been formatted NTFS for Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8
    The box says that it can be reformatted for Mac
    I have a Macbook Pro with Retina Display that I bought this year in late March/early April.
    It runs OS X Mavericks, and Parallels Desktop 9 for Mac.
    I would like to reformat it so that I can use it on my laptop both with Windows and Mac OS at the same time. I do not wish to use a partition as I want to access the hard drive through Mac and Windows at the same time on my laptop and I also want to be able to access the Mac things on a Windows computer and vice versa.
    I have never formatted a hard drive before, and I would like to use a completely safe software, or no software at all, if it is possible.
    I am sorry but I don't have a very high knowledge of this.
    Thanks,
    Sandy-Wood

    It would be easier, using Parallels, just to format the drive for "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". You can see it both in the Windows/Parallels and the Mac side. Leaving it formatted as NTFS is not going to allow you to access (write to) the drive unless you use third-party software. Formatting it for Mac lets you use it, as I said, on both the Parallels VM and the Mac side.
    If you were using Boot Camp, I would advise leaving it formatted as NTFS and purchasing NTFS for Mac to access the drive on both OS's. You can mitigate that by formatting the drive for Mac:
    Good luck,
    Clinton

  • How to format WD external drive for Mac

    Just got the WD MyBook 2TB.  It's not the one specifically for Mac.  It says it is compatible, needs to reformat.  How easy is it to reformat?  It is for Time Machine.  Thanks.

    Connect it, power it up, go to Disk Utility (in Applications/Utilities), select the WD disk on the left, go to the Erase tab, and choose "Mac OS Extended". Click Erase. That should do it.
    You should then a) see it mount on the desktop, and b) automatically get a prompt to use the drive for Time Machine - if not, you can go into the Time Machine menu (top right of the screen), go to TM Preferences, and select it.
    Matt

  • How to format FAT drive as MAC OS EXTENDED?

    Hello,
    Does anybody can help me to format a FAT drive as MAC OS EXTENDED? It is an external FW drive. I cannot find the way in the laptop.
    Thanks!!

    I've discovered one subtlety with Disk Utility that wasn't at all apparent until I smashed into it headlong. I have a number of machines that have been running Tiger Server since the day it came out, incrementally updating from 10.4 to 10.4.11 as each release came out- so I have a number of 10.4 install disks to support them. I have also been painstakingly backing them up weekly via SuperDooper to emergency firewire backup drives, so that when disasters would occur I could theoretically simply reboot from the external drive and keep going.
    At some point, Apple changed both Disk Utility and the requirements for a bootable external disk, and apparently I didn't get the memo. The old Disk Utility present on the original 10.4 disks lacks the "Options" feature found on the current one under the Partion tab- which allows the user to select the partition table format. There are now three options: Master Boot Record (FAT/DOS), GUID Partition Table (used to support the Intel OS X machines), and Apple Partition Map for the PPC machines.
    Regrettably, PowerPC machines running 10.4.11 apparently *will not boot* from disks reformatted from DOS/FAT as Mac OS X Extended with the old disk utility, as I found to my woe when I installed Security Update 2008-008 and all my Server machines stopped working. They appear on the list of bootable drives when booting in select mode, they appear in the list for selecting the boot disk in System Utility, they can be selected- but the machine will simply not boot from them. The old utility apparently used to leave the FAT/DOS Master Boot Record partition table in place when reformatting to Mac OS Extended. I discovered that it was necessary to use the new utility, and specifically go into the options and select "Apple Partition Table", if you intend to be able to boot from an external drive reformatted from FAT/DOS with 10.4.11-era machines. And it should be noted that the new disk utility *does not* do this table selection by default: you have to use the Options button under the Partition tab and set it appropriately yourself.
    Consequently, I spent several days reformatting, repartitioning, changing partion table types, and recloning my backup drives so as to render them bootable once again under this apparently new scheme. So, as a word to the wary: if you have been maintaining bootable external drives since the early (perhaps pre-10.4.7) releases of Tiger, it would behoove you to take a few minutes to go make sure that they are actually *still bootable*- and correct this gotcha before you run into it in an hour of need.
    The other bad news if that, if you have the original 10.4 Server disks, "Archive and Install" does not appear to be an option, and you only have a disk utility that can't produce a bootable external disk in any case when booting from them. So it can be a painful exposure.

  • External HD in MS DOS FAT and partitions in Mac OS X extended

    Hi,
    I am in midst of reorganizing back up.
    I noted my Maxtor external HD, 300 GB, has format MS-DOS FAT,
    but the 2 partitions are set up in Mac OSX extended: one for TM in extended journaled, the other partition in extended.
    Anybody knows what implications I might run into ?
    Should I reformat ?
    Thanks
    Tom

    this screenshot does not contradict anything. it just says that if you use the erase tab on the whole drive with the currently selected erase settings it will erase the whole drive and reformat it to a single partition formatted FAT. but what i do see at the bottom of this screenshot is that the partition scheme is set to MBR. that's bad if you ever want to use this drive for TM or bootable backups. the partition scheme should be GUID for that. so if you ever want to use the drive for that purpose you should repartition it with GUID partition scheme. that can be done using that partition tab. set the number of partitions to what you want (but not "current"), click on "options" and set the scheme to GUID. note that this will wipe the whole drive.

  • Getting a 7 gig file onto an MS-DOS (fat) drive?

    Trying to deliver a Quicktime movie file to a client ... who has supplied me with a drive that's pre-formatted MS-DOS (fat).  I have this memory that MS-DOS (fat) can't handle files bigger than 2 gigs.  I wonder how the PC world manages big movie files?
    Is there a work around?  Or something I can do that I haven't heard about?  I can't reformat the drive, it has to work on her PC, and it's already half full of her own materials/files.
    If there is no way to do this, can I get her another drive and format it to some alternate format that will allow me to dump this movie file on it (from my MacBook Pro), and yet allow her read write access when it's plugged into her PC?
    All ears ...
    Ben

    Thank you Niel and Michael, very helpful.
    I notice my 'Disk Utitlity' will let me re-format this particular MS-DOS (FAT) drive as an ExFAT.  Is that what you mean Niel?  Maybe my MacBook Pro already has whatever software is required to do this?
    I've saved my clients data somewhere else, and am going to try and reformat her drive as ExFAT, and then see if it will take these big movie files.
    Your help is mucho appreciated,
    Ben

  • How to reformat a mac os formatted external hard drive to ms dos fat

    i partitioned a external hard drive so it could work as both my time machine back up and an external hard drive, i got another external hard drive as i was running out of space and wanted to use that one as a back up only, how do i reformat the partitioned one to MS-DOS (FAT)

    Use Disk Utility in the Utilities folder: http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=1075

  • How to format external drive as MS-DOS (FAT)

    How do I format the external drive as MS-DOS (FAT)?
    I followed the instructions and have Disk Utility open for the external drive. Then > Erase > changed format from Mac OS to ExFAT and did the same with the RAID tab.  But this does not change the Format from Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
    Thanks in advance for any advice..........It's never easy is it?

    biddymon wrote:
    Snip snip...........and I appreciate your sense of humor.  Unfortunately mine is in the sleep mode at this stage of the game.
    (3) Boot Camp 4.  downloaded to 16-GB flash drive, which is recognized in Windows but will not install due to following prompt: "The version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you're running.  Check your computer's system information to see whether you need an x86 (32-bit) or x-64 (64-bit) version of this program, and then contact the software publisher."  This flash drive is formatted as MS-DOS (FAT), although ExFAT was an alternative.
    OK, that does not suggest a disk format problem, but it does suggest that (as it says) you have the wrong Boot Camp version, or the wrong Windows version. ie, you have a 32bit version of Windows installed and you may have a 64bit version of Boot Camp on your Flashdrive.
    I'll be back shortly, I'll get links for the various versions of Boot Camp, if there is no 32bit version for your Mac a reinstall of Windows is indicated, the 64bit version though.
    OK
    Even better, here is a link to a page with all the versions, if you click the version name a description will be displayed, find the correct one for your Mac and version of Windows.
    Finally this page contains a model by model breakdown of which version of Windows will run on which model of Mac.

  • How do I change the desktop icon for an MS-Dos Fat formatted flash drive in Lion?

    I have a bunch of flash drives I need to format for work, and we want to put our company logo as the icon for each drive.  We wanted to format them as MS-Dos Fat so that they'll be readable and writeable on both Mac and Windows computers.  But when I format them that way and change the icon, it displays as a generic preview JPEG image instead of the real image or even the default hard drive icon.
    I managed to fix it so the icon will display properly in Snow Leopard, but in Lion the drive still mounts with the generic Preview thumbnail.
    Is there any way I can easily format a flash drive so that a) it will be readable and writeable on Windows and OSX machines and b) have the icon for the drive appear correctly on Lion, Snow Leopard, and windows machines?
    Thanks!

    Command- i will open the info pane of your icon. 
    Try opening and "selecting all" ⌘-A (of your preferred image,) then copy and paste your preferred image on the high-lighted icon in the upper left.

  • How to format a USB drive to FAT 16 on Mac OS X 10.7?

    How to format a USB drive to FAT 16 on Mac OS X 10.7? Disk utility does only FAT32 formatting.

    I assuming you really need FAT16 for some external requirement, otherwise why not FAT32??
    See this for formatting an SD card to FAT16 via Terminal commands.
    The same procedure should work for any USB drive. YMMV.
    iPartition will also format FAT16.
    I don't know if the free version wiill do it.
    Steve

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