Recommended format for USB drive/stick ?

My usual project delivery is DVD or online but I've got a client who is asking to put his (8min) film onto a USB stick. I've never done this so I would be very grateful for any advice.
What format/settings should I export my standard resolution PAL project out to?
I'm assuming that the USB speed bottle-neck means only a low quality version could play directly from the drive ?
What's the normal procedure? Instruct a viewer to drag a file to their desktop and then play? or keep file playable from drive?
Is it resonable to keep the audio CD quality and then make the compromises on video quality as that is where the intense data damands are?
Or is there something else I should consider? Any advice would be great as this is a very spikey client!
Cheers
I'm running Studio 3 so that's FCP 7.0 and compressor 3.5.

Excellent. I've just tried that out and the video is playing smoothly straight from the USB stick. Thanks PJ.
A couple of questions. When it opened in compressor the FCP sequence was no longer 16x9 so I saved the template as a custom version and used the 'Geometry / Padding' controls to select the 16x9 setting. That added 21px above and below which seemed to fix the problem. Is that the right thing to do? or is there a better solution?
And also, within the Geometry options the frame size controls were greyed out so the mpeg was locked at 352 x 288 px. This is not looking too shabby even at full screen, but obviously it would be good to be able to be flexible and make it a bit larger. Any idea why I can't access these controls?
Thanks again

Similar Messages

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 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

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"

Can't format a USB drive

I have a USB drive that appears to be quite messed up. Running fdisk on it gives the following:
Disk /dev/sdf: 4040 MB, 4040724480 bytes
125 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1018 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 7750 * 512 = 3968000 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x2c6b7369
This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdf1 ? 249811 488760 925929529+ 68 Unknown
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(116, 100, 32) logical=(249810, 12, 29)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(288, 101, 46) logical=(488759, 81, 59)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdf2 ? 171637 241182 269488144 79 Unknown
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(357, 32, 43) logical=(171636, 83, 47)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(0, 13, 10) logical=(241181, 124, 42)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdf3 ? 69548 249981 699181456 53 OnTrack DM6 Aux3
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(345, 32, 19) logical=(69547, 2, 18)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(324, 77, 19) logical=(249980, 117, 49)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdf4 ? 179952 179955 10668+ 49 Unknown
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(87, 1, 0) logical=(179951, 119, 36)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(335, 78, 2) logical=(179954, 88, 44)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.
Partition table entries are not in disk order
I tried using the 'o' option to create an empty DOS partition table, but when I write, fdisk exits with an error.
Command (m for help): o
Building a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0xf7f408ba.
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
After that, of course, the previous content won't be recoverable.
Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)
Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Error closing file
Nothing happens. I've tried clearing the drive with dd:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdf bs=512 count=1
But checking in fdisk reveals that this doesn't have any effect on the disk.
Looking at my logs, I see the following when trying to run dd:
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdf] Unhandled sense code
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdf] Result: hostbyte=0x07 driverbyte=0x08
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdf] Sense Key : 0x4 [current]
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdf] ASC=0x0 ASCQ=0x0
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdf] CDB: cdb[0]=0x2a: 2a 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00
lost page write due to I/O error on sdf
I don't know what to do at this point. Is the drive beyond hope? Do I need to try in Windows? I'd appreciate any help.

I had similar partitions on a couple of USB sticks I purchased a year or so back, I guess the sticks were formatted with Windows in mind. I used parted to remove the screwy partitions:
parted /dev/sdf rm 1
parted /dev/sdf rm 2
(etc 'til all the partitions are removed)
Then create a new primary partition:
parted /dev/sdf mkpart primary ext2 0MB 4040
(where 4040 is the partition size you want in MB)
That's from memory, so check the syntax carefully!

Formatting/erasing USB memory stick using Disk Utility - won't unmount

Hi,
I've got a 2GB USB memory stick, and I'm trying to format it by erasing it on Disk Utility just as I have done with many USB memory sticks before now.
Whatever I try to do with this one though I get the error message:
"Volume Erase failed with error:
Could not unmount disk."
There are no manual switches on the USB memory stick to change, and I've checked that I have read/write privileges so I don't know what else to do. I can't find anyway of unmounting it.
I need this memory stick for transferring a large amount of files and it's the only one I've got, so any help that would stop me from buying a new one would be great!
Thanks people.

sorry bro it's toast. the only time i had something like this happen the manufacture said the drive had to be re-flashed. if they provide the software online you got lucky. other wise they will tell you to send in and get it replaced (warranty valid)
Message was edited by: realhiphop0331

NB305-02P Attempt to create recovery media damaged format of USB drive?

Twice now, I've tried to created a recovery record using 16 Gb USB drives. Different makes of drive, one I have been using previously on an XP computer, works fine there. In both cases, the attempt to create the recovery record resulted in a USB drive that was unusable. The Creator program calls for the re-format of the USB drive, that fails, and then the drive is indicated in Windows as having zero capacity, plus it cannot be re-formatted by any method I've tried so far.
What I'd like most, of course, is a way to repair the failed drives. Failing that is there a specific method I can use, with a new drive, to avoid this problem?
Thanks for any help!
Larry Van Wormer

Hi egrivel,
As stated above, there is no option to create optical recovery media. You can use a flash drive. 8G 16G I believe, but verify that when running the utility. Make sure "copy the recovery partition" is checked.
Methodology to create Recovery Media and reload a Lenovo system with Microsoft Windows 8 preload
Z.
[edit] 16G flash drive size.
The large print: please read the Community Participation Rules before posting. Include as much information as possible: model, machine type, operating system, and a descriptive subject line. Do not include personal information: serial number, telephone number, email address, etc. The fine print: I do not work for, nor do I speak for Lenovo. Unsolicited private messages will be ignored. ... GeezBlog
English Community Deutsche Community Comunidad en Español Русскоязычное Сообщество

Disk Utility Not Formatting External USB Drive

Hello,
I recently upgraded to Leopard.  Around this same time, my company purchased two, 1 Terabyte USB External drives for my coworker and I in the graphics/web development department.  They arrived this morning and we were very excited.
My problem is that I cannot get Disk Utility to erase/format the new, external USB TB drive for use with my MBP.  Disk Utility fails almost immediately with the following message:
"*Disk Erase Failed*
Disk Erase failed with the error:
File system formatter failed."
The options I'm choosing for the Erase are:
Volume Format: MAC OS EXTENDED  (i've even tried the 'journaled' version too)
Name: TB
As soon as I hit 'Erase' I get the error message I listed above.  The volume never mounts on my desktop and does not exist.  I can see the drive itself in the System Profiler, so my Mac sees it, it just can't format it!  I've also made sure all my permissions were repaired, so I'm just a little confused as to why this simple task keeps failing?
Is there some additional, esoteric step that I'm missing?
My coworker was able to get his disk to work because he did NOT have Time Machine turned on yet.  When he connected his new TB drive, Time Machine asked him to format/initialize the disk and he of course said "ok."  I had Time Machine set to use my OLD external USB drive and it's been working great. As of this writing, my coworker is a happy camper. I, however, am not.  I'm not blaming Time Machine, just noting the differences between my coworker's experience and my own. Since the volume is not currently mounted on my machine, I can't format my disk the same way as my coworker has done using Time Machine, since Time Machine doesn't see the volume.
My fear is that the manufacturer (whom I've also contacted and am awaiting their response) will throw this back to a software problem....and the folks on the forum here will point their fingers and say 'hardware problem.'  Ah, the eternal struggle.....who to blame?
Any help or additional troubleshooting tips are greatly appreciated.

This is the best, and only, way to format an external hard drive, which is courtesy of Kappy.
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. 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.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process will take 30 minutes to an hour or more depending upon the drive size.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

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.

Size restrictions for USB memory sticks?

Hi out there,
are there any known size restrictions for the use of USB memory sticks with Mac OS X?
I bought two 32 GByte (noname) USB memory sticks to "mobilize" my iTunes-library. I formatted it without errors (believing what the DiskUtility-application told me) and copied my files to one stick. But only about 4 GByte of data where able to be opened after copying. The other files where shown in the directories with their correct sizes (I compared them to the originals on my harddisk) but couldn'd be opened.
I tried copying them a second time, using the second 32 GByte stick - but same behaviour as on stick one.
Next I tried to format both sticks with the DiskUtility using the option "writing zeros in seven runs" and then tested data integrity with the TechTool-Pro application (surface test, random read and write). Both showed no errors on the sticks. But copying my library again to the sticks showed no diffrent behaviour as before. The first few copied GByte (I think about 4 GByte) could be opened by iTunes, but the rest "is only there".
Any idea what's going wrong?
Greeting from Germany
Ansgar

Hello Ansgar,
sounds like one of those faked 32GB Sticks.
http://www.digitv-forum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=3680

Which format for hard drives?

I'm working with RED footage on set and at home. Mac on set and Windows 7 with Adobe CS5 at home.
We'll have 2TB external drives (eSATA/USB) that we will need to be able to both read and write to using both Mac and PC. My questionS are about how/what to format the drives. FAT32, NTFS, or HFS+ ?
1. What solution would you propose?
2. There's no problem with the 2GB file size limit for FAT32 because RED solved that problem.
a) Is FAT32 unstable/dangerous?
b) What about the 32GB partition size limit I've read about?
c) If you use a special disk formatting program to get around that 32GB limit, does it cause problems or slow down read/write performance?
3. If I use MacDrive or Macfuse software so that I can use NTFS with Mac or HFS+ with PC, will the software slow down read/write performance?

Thanks, Harm.
I had read in several places (maybe quite old forum threads) about FAT32 not being able to make partitions larger than 32GB.
Is that incorrect? Can I simply format any 2TB drive as FAT32 and it will work smoothly and efficiently with both Mac and PC?
I'd also read that FAT32 was "unstable". Is that not the case?

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

New format for USB devices.

I am facing an issue with new USB drives. There is a new standard for windows 8 when usb device in detected as an hard drive and not external driver. Thus SCCM is not able to create a boot media.
I have not done much research on it. I want to see if someone had same issues and got it to work?
Thanks for the help.

Hi,
This is a known issue, best advice, by a cheap USB memory which doesn't present itself as an Hard Drive. There is no good workaround.
Regards,
Jörgen
-- My System Center blog ccmexec.com -- Twitter
@ccmexec

Disk Utility Can't format my USB drive

I've got a Transcend 8GB usb drive and i want to erase everything on it but i can't. I know that the best way to do this is the Disk Utility (Because Finder can't erase them too. When I drag and drop to the bin, it says "43 files cannot be deleted")
When i attempt to format, this message appears from disk utility:
What does this mean?
and also, another message appears at the same time.
What does this mean?
I just wanted to format my disk. But i can still see the content in the disk. But can't copy them to desktop.
Please help me!

Happens with corrupt drives may be due to partition table failure. may be a similar post can help you POSIX reports: The operation couldn’t be completed. Cannot allocate memory

Recommended format for USB drive/stick ?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for