. Insert the flash drive or hard drive you want to format for Windows compatibility.

Go to the Applications folder on your Mac’s hard drive, then go to the Utilities folder, and launch Disk Utility. Select the drive you want to format. Warning: the following steps will delete any info you currently have on the drive. Click the Erase button. Click the Format menu, then choose either MS-DOS (FAT) or ExFAT. Choose the former if the size of the disk is 32 GB or less. Choose the latter if the size of the disk is over 32 GB.

Enter a name for the volume (no more than 11 characters). Click Erase, then click Done. STAFF Steve Sande Publisher, Editor Dennis Sellers Contributing Editor Marty Edwards Contributing Editor Contributors Copyright © 2015 - 2018 Raven Solutions, LLC. All Rights Reserved ABOUT Established February 9, 2015, Apple World Today is a resource for all things Apple and beyond. AWT publishes news stories, credible rumors and how-to's covering a variety of topics daily. As a trusted tech blog, AWT provides opinion and analysis on the news in addition to the facts.

Our staff consists of experienced writers who live and breathe Apple products every day. Apple World Today is a trusted source for news, information and analysis about Apple and its products. Our readership is made up of new users, intermediate and business users and advanced users. In addition, we cover topics relevant to niches like developers, designers and others. AWT's writers and editors are trusted worldwide for their fair reviews, and AWT reviews everything from hardware to software to accessories and bags. In addition to news, opinion and information, Apple World Today provides resources for deals, software updates and more.

Quickbooks support for mac. Mobile Devices – Microsoft Remote Desktop 8.0 or higher for Android or iOS. Linux** – KRDC builds will allow connectivity. Other 3rd party RDP applications may work, but have not been tested by Right Networks. If you need to print we recommend using the TSPrint rdesktop build located here: *Please note, Windows XP and Vista are no longer supported by Microsoft.

External hard disks and thumb drives were always popular and will remain so as the easiest and cheapest way to share and carry data. These devices can be accessed by any device. But wait, there is an exception. Sometimes information written on Mac formatted hard disk cannot be accessed by PC. Mac can access details in Windows formatted disk, but with restrictions.

Here are the reasons for these restrictions. Why PC cannot read files from Mac formatted hard disks and thumb drives Windows operating system and Mac operating system supports different file system. Operating system use the file systems to prepare hard disk to read and write data. That is why you are asked to format hard disk before storing data.

Different operating system uses different file systems. If your PC is not able to recognize an external disk or thumb drive which was formatted using Mac, it is because it uses HFS+ file system. Here are the reasons.

Best How To Format Thumb Drive For Mac Download

File systems supported by the latest Windows operating system are FAT32, NTFS and exFAT. File systems supported by Mac machines are HFS+, NTFS, FAT 32, exFAT, ext2. If the external disk or thumb drive is formatted using NTFS, Mac will be able to view the files inside the disk, but it won’t allow you to delete or modify the contents on the disk. You can copy the content from disk to Mac, but you can’t cut and paste it. If the external disk is formatted using FAT32, you will be able to access and modify data on both and PC. But FAT32 is old file system and lacks security features. If the disk is formatted using HFS+, Windows operating system won’t be able to recognize the contents inside the disk.

Windows up until Windows 10 have not added support for HFS+ file system. Windows won’t be able to recognize HFS+ drives and list is unmounted volume.

If the disk is formatted using exFAT, Windows and Mac will be able to access data. So if you want your disk to be accessed by both Windows and Mac without any restrictions or with the help of third party software, then format your external disk or thumb drive using exFAT. How to access Mac formatted hard disk or thumb drive from a PC MacDrive is a tool that helps in accessing Mac disks from a PC or Windows computer.

It works with variety of media including external hard drives and flash drives, CD, DVD etc. The software interface is simple and straight forward. There are plenty of options such as repair, burn, create, open in file explorer etc.

You can repair the existing file system HFS+, create or burn a disk using the HFS+ file system, optimize the file system. The latest version also allows removing data which are completely unrecoverable. MacDrive is the best when it comes to accessing HFS+ partition. The paid software cost $49.99 and is considered the best in this category.

Format Hard Drive For Mac And Pc

The trial version can be used for 5 days. Some of the other software’s in this category are HFSExplorer, MacDisk, Disk Internals Linux Reader, Paragon HFS+ for Windows, TransMac etc. In short, if you want to make sure the thumb drive or external disk is read by both Mac and PC, format is using exFAT file system.

Use the comment section for further discussion on the subject.