HT3764 How do I format a USB drive?

Have a brand new USB drive that someone put one windows file on and distributed at a meeting. I could not read it saying it was not conpatible. I thought I would reformat it to work on the MAC.
When I did so using Erase - I erased what ever was on there but when it went to reformat - it wouldn't do it. Now all the command buttons are grey. Does this mead the Drive is bad and not formatable? or is there a way to format it?

Kappy's extensive hard drive formatting post - http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8340551 - note that instructions at end are for zeroing data.
BDAqua's Formatting instructions - http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8901255
Pondini: Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks... - http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

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How do i format my usb drive so that it works with both mac and pc?

if you could please explain the process that would be extremly helpful...thanks!
iMac 17" Mac OS X (10.4.8)
iMac 17" Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Please search the discussions before posting. Your question has been asked and answered many times. It could save you time in the future.
Attach the drive to the PC and format it as FAT. Or use Disk Utility on the Mac and format it as "MS-DOS" which is in fact FAT.

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

Hi, i have version 10.6.8 and i am trying to format a usb drive. my computer doesnt have doesnt have disc utility on it anywhere. what can i do?

Hi, Ihave a macbook pro about 2 years old running 10.6.8 and i'm trying to format a usb drive. i dont have disk utility on my computer anywhere, what can i do?

Reinstall Snow Leopard. Or you can try to extract it from the DVD.
How Restore Deleted or Missing OS X Components
A few of the basic OS X installed applications can be restored from the Optional Installs installer located in the Optional installs folder on your Installer DVD. However, if what you need is not there then follow the instructions below.
How to Use Pacifist to Restore Deleted or Missing OS X Components
Insert the OS X Installer DVD into the optical drive. Use a simple utility like TinkerTool to toggle invisibility so you can see invisible items. Alternatively, open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder and at the prompt enter the following:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles Yes
Press RETURN.
To turn off the display of invisible files repeat the above command substituting No for Yes.
The install packages are located in the /System/Installation/ folder on the DVD.
Download the shareware utility Pacifist. Use it to extract a fresh copy of the missing item(s) from the file archives on your OS X installation DVD. The file archives are in the /System/Installations/ folder (use Go to Folder option in the Go menu of the Finder.)
Here are Four Basic ways to use Pacifist (courtesy of George Orville.)
A. Drag a .pkg icon onto the Pacifist window .....proceed to step 7.
B. Click on “Open Package ....” and navigate to package desired and click “Open” in
       the open/save window.....proceed to step 7.
C. Insert Mac OS X installer CD and when it mounts, navigate to .... Menu->Go->Go
       to Folder. In the path field enter or paste ....
/Volumes/disc name/System/Installation/Packages (where disc name is the name of the CD/DVD that you inserted.)
Click on the "Go" button ..... • Drag a .pkg to Pacifist..... proceed to step 7.
The package you'll need will have to be discovered by trial and error, but for most applications you should start with the Essentials.pkg and/or Additional Essentials.pkg.
D. Insert your Mac OS X install disk 1 .... and open Pacifist.
1.          In Pacifist, select "Open Mac OS X Install Packages" ... dialog may appear asking for disk 2, then disk 3 and finally disk 1 again.... {if DVD is not used)...If “Stop Loading” is selected...the procedure will stop!!!
2a. When loading is complete, a new window appears, click the triangle to display contents of each package...Select item and proceed to step 7.
2b.          or click the “Find” icon in the Pacifist window and type the name of the software you need.
3.          In the list that comes back, click the top most entry for the item that you want. ..... that is the one for the English language.
4.          On the top of the Pacifist window, click “verify” .... you will probably be prompted for your password.
5.          Enter checks for.... “verify permissions” and “verify file contents.” and click “verify” ....enter password when prompted.... you will get back output which may look like this:
          20 files were scanned. 20 of 20 files were present on the hard disk. 0 of 20 files had file permissions that did not match those specified in the package. 0 of 20 files had checksums that did not match those specified in the package.
6.          Click “close”. Go to step 7.
Extract or Install........
7.          In the Toolbar (upper left), you now have the option to extract or install. Click a file in the lower list and those two icons will be enabled.
8.          If “Extract to...” is selected.... navigate to the location where the file will be placed, select “choose”, select “extract” in new dialog that appears,authenicate , if prompted, click “OK”.
9.          In the next dialog, click “Extract”.
10.          If “Install” is selected... dialog will appear with the location/path of the installed software. Click “Install”
11.          Type in your password, click “OK”
Pacifist will begin to extract files.
12.          In steps 8/10ß.... you also have the choice to “cancel”
Notes:          Pacifist may find that a file it is installing already exists on the hard disk. Pacifist will present you with an alert panel....
• Stop
• Leave original alone
• Update .....
• Default selection
• Replace .... (Replace option should only be used on full install packages)

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 to synchronise folders in USB drives to macbook harddisk folder

How to synchronize folders - from USB drive to a documents folder?

Here's a fairly inexpensive solution - http://www.greenworldsoft.com/sync-folders-pro-help.html.
Clinton

If i format a usb drive, is a partition already made on it

hello,
if i format a usb drive, to say hfs+ , is 1 partition already made on it? Trying to figure this out is confusing as there does not appear to be a 'partition map scheme (guid or master boot record) if i do it this way.
However, if i specifically select "1 partition" on the usb drive, i get the choice to choose between guid and mbr
in a plain format, like in the first way i described, is a partition made on the usb, or is it all just emptyless and partitionless space for storage (and would this also mean that nothing can boot off of it)
many thanks

To format a hard drive, a partition must be there, so when you format it, the partition is already there (unless you have all the space of the USB as free space). In conclusion, you probably have a partition on the USB drive before and after formatting it

Format the USB drive as single FAT partition.

iam trying to re install or atleast update my microsoft office and ginp on my early 2011 mac book pro and says i have to format the usb drive to single fat partition when iam starting the boot camp assistant

Doesn't this erase all information on the disk? I have existing data on that disk that I require. I get the message "Erasing a disk deletes all data on all its partitions"

How can I format my usb install drive?

how can I format mymacbook air software install drive.?, the ones that came with the Macbook Air as the OS is now old I have no Use for the Drive and would like to use it as a stylish usb flash drive.
the one I mean is here
Is it actually possible to format it?
thanks.

It is showing up as a cd drive i should mention it is holding a 10.6 osx and so will not let me erase.
any suggestions?
thanks

Partition &/or Format Corrupt USB Drive?

Posting here as I am convinced, after much reading, that Time Machine has corrupted an external USB drive. The drive is a 160GB SmartDisk FireLite external USB drive (model USBFLB160). I'm not worried about recovering the data as it is just a clone of my MBP's drive and I have other backups. I am, however, interested in at least being able to use the drive again.
The drive will not mount. Does not show in Finder or Disk Utility. Is not visible to Disk Warrior (but I have not booted form Disk Warrior CD - not sure if that would make a difference). Plugged directly in to one of the MBP's USB ports the drive is not visible in System Profiler. Plugged into a USB hub the drive is visible in System Profiler (but still not visible in any of the other places mentioned above). The drive will not mount on my XP laptop either and is not visible in XP Disk Management utilities (would have settled for formatting as FAT 32 so I could then reformat as HFS).
I'm out of ideas.
Any suggestions on how I might be able to force-format (for lack of a better term) this drive? I'm willing to spend money so long as it is less than the cost of replacing the drive.
I apologize if this is truly the wrong place for this message. Happy to post elsewhere, but please let me know what forum would be better.
Thank you for your time!
Paul

Having similar issues with a Smartdisk Firelite 160GB firewire drive which has gone haywire since I tried to use Time machine.
Clean install of leopard, hooked up the firewire drive - Time Machine began first backup then failed at 1.3Gb. Couldn't unmount drive. Eventually shutdown and removed drive. Powered up and reconnected - drive showed up - tried Time machine, same problem. This time tried to repair drive using disk utility. Would not do it. Tried to erase and reformat drive. Failed.
Since then have been stuck in a loop as above. Can mount drive to use as a basic drive but trying to use Time Machine hoses it.
Have read loads of posts about time machine issues similar to this but cannot find a solution.

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........

New Firewire 800 External Hard Drive and how to use old External USB Drive

Hi All,
I have a new LaCie d2 Quadra Hard Disk hard drive 500 GB - FireWire / FireWire 800 / Hi-Speed USB / eSATA-300 on the way, when it arrives I plan to use it as my Time Machine Backup drive with the FireWire 800 connection. I am currently using a Seagate Free Agent USB 2.0 320 GB external drive as my Time Machine disk. The reason for upgrading is the USB drive is slow slow slow! I am not concerned about the data on my old drive and will just wipe it clean using Disk Utility. What I would like to do is use the old drive to archive iTunes 7.7.1 and Aperture 2.0 music and photographs. Can someone give me an idea how to go about doing this?
Thanks!

Hi, yes that will copy the whole iTunes..including everything in iTunes..BUT, as you add to your iTunes on the Main HD, with the ext HD I think you will have to manually update anything added. Or dragNdrop the whole thing again.. You could also locate you iTunes music Library & just copy that across..With images once again find your iPhoto library & just copy that across..L

How can i format an external drive to be used for both windows and mac

i recently bought a macbook pro and used bootcamo so as to be able to run win7 and mac. I now wish to have an external usb drive so as to backup and tranfer files between the two os's. How can I do this?

Firstly,
There is a forum for MacBook Pro - not this. And for Boot Camp.
You can:
add Paragon HFS driver to Windows which works
add Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X
USB is of course slow and while people use it for backups and TimeMachine, that is one place where FW800, eSATA or USB3 would be better served.

How can I boot from USB drive?

I have installed a Kingston SSD drive on my Macbook Pro. The original HDD is now in a USB enclosure. I tried to boot from the supplied CD by selecting it in the preferences. However they supplied a CD with Aarons for Windows. Now I cannot either clone my HDD to the SSD or boot from the original HDD. How can I override the CD as boot disk?

Boot Using OPTION key:
1. Restart the computer.
2. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the
"OPTION" key.
3. Release the key when the boot manager appears.
4. Select the disk icon of the external USB drive.
5. Click on the arrow button below the icon.

How to re-format an external drive?

I had a G3 iMac with a 160 GB internal drive that was running an earlier version of OS-X. When I installed that drive, there was a limitation that only allowed it to recognize about 120 GB of that drive.
I now have an iMac G5 and want to use the 160 GB drive from the G3 iMac as an external USB drive. When I connect it to the G5 iMac, the drive is recognized, but only shows a total of 120 GB of total space.
How can I reformat this external drive to allow it to recognize the entire 160 GB of space which the newer versions of OS-X now can do?
Thanks,
Bart

Thanks! My problem is solved. When I was in Disk Utility, I had been clicking on the partition name in the list on the left side of the window. It wasn't until I clicked on the level above the partition name (which I assume represents the actual hard drive) that the Partition tab became available. Once I could get to the partition window, it was quick and easy to delete the old partition and create a newer one that recognized the whole amount of space on the drive.
Thanks!

HT3764 How do I format a USB drive?

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