Format Flash Drive For Both Mac And Pc
USB drives, by default formatted into FAT32, which is compatible with both Mac and Windows. Two drawbacks on this format are that FAT32 supports maximum file size into 4GB and FAT 32 format is more susceptible to disk errors and offers no security. We strongly recommend this method for a temporary purpose file transfer.
- The other is to format your drives with the exFAT file system. This file system can be read and written by both Mac and Windows with support for single files of up to 128 petabytes! Even better, it’s freely included in both operating systems. A drive can be formatted with exFAT using either a Windows or a Mac computer.
- To format your external drive hard drive in Windows to use on Mac and PC platforms, first plug-in your drive with a Windows machine. Open the Disk Management tool by right-clicking on the start menu icon and then select Disk Management.
I have a brand new Sandisk USB flash drive that I am trying to copy movie files onto from my Mac's hard drive. For some reason I can copy one of the movie files but not the other, even though they are both Quicktime (.mov) files. In doing some research, it seems the one file will not copy/paste likely because it is over 4 GB in size and the FAT32 filing system on the USB drive prevents files in excess of this size to be copied and pasted.
Format Hard Drive For Mac And Pc
My question to anyone who can help me is: How can I get files over 4 GB onto and off of this USB drive AND be able to use it for both Mac and PC computers?
Thanks for any advice.
Shaun
Formatting Flash Drive On Mac
Posted on Jan 1, 2014 2:17 PM
Hello, gaminhk!
Format Flash Drive For Both Mac And Pc
Thank you for reaching out and using the Apple Support Communities. We see from your post that your seeking a way to make your MP4 videos viewable on both Mac and Windows PCs. Having that shared compatibility between both operating systems is very important, especially when you want to share to them with others.
In this situation, the best way to ensure that both a Mac and a Windows PC can access the videos from the same external device is to make sure the device is in the correct disk format. This article explains how to format a device or disk (e.g. USB flash drive, external hard drive) into the proper format that is accessible by both Mac and Windows computers: Disk Utility 12.x: Format a disk for Windows computers
In regards to your second question, check out this article: If QuickTime Player can‘t open an audio or video file
Please let us know if this resolves your issues.
Kindest Regards.
Sep 1, 2016 10:19 AM