#HOW TO REFORMAT A USB DRIVE MAC OS X#
#HOW TO REFORMAT A USB DRIVE SERIAL#
#HOW TO REFORMAT A USB DRIVE PORTABLE#
#HOW TO REFORMAT A USB DRIVE SOFTWARE#
#HOW TO REFORMAT A USB DRIVE FREE#

🛡️ Keep it secure – USB drives are portable by nature and can easily be lost or stolen.

#HOW TO REFORMAT A USB DRIVE FREE#

Also, try to avoid connecting your USB devices to any other computer that you cannot verify as being free from viruses and malware.

#HOW TO REFORMAT A USB DRIVE SOFTWARE#

🦠 Avoid viruses and malware – Always run updated antivirus software on your Mac to keep it free of malware.

Get in the habit of labeling drives when you format them or add a name or change the name of an existing device.

🏷️ Label your devices – Putting a label on your devices is a simple and effective way of knowing what’s on them and avoiding inadvertently formatting the wrong drive.

The time and expense of making a backup will seem minor when your backup saves you from a data loss scenario. If you’re not doing it, get started as soon as possible.

🗄️ Backup your USB devices regularly – We cannot stress the importance of backups enough.

Recover Formatted Hard Drive on Mac Preventing data loss on your USB devicesįollowing are several suggestions for methods that help you prevent data loss on your USB devices. Then connect the USB to your computer and transfer its data over your network to the cloud. Just get an account and sign up for the amount of storage you need. The process will be similar with any cloud backup service. This allows you to use the cloud to backup your USB drive if you don’t have room on your Mac or another USB storage device available. You can quickly and easily obtain as much storage space as you need in the cloud. Simply connect the two devices and copy the files from the source to the target device.

In some cases, you may need to use a USB hub if you don’t have enough free ports to perform the operation. If you don’t have enough room to back up the drive internally, you can use a second USB device as the backup target. Just connect the device to your Mac, create a new folder on your internal drive, and copy the data from the device to the folder. If you are using a small USB device and have enough space on your Mac’s internal disk, this might be the best way to back it up before formatting. You can accomplish this in several different ways depending on the amount of data on the device and the space available on your Mac. This proprietary file system was introduced in 1993, and it supports metadata and advanced data structures to improve performance, additional extensions for improved security, and file system journaling.īefore formatting a USB device that may contain important data, it is a critical safety step to back it up. Microsoft has also developed their file system for Windows, NTFS. It was developed by Apple and first introduced in 1998 as an improved version of HFS, supporting much larger files and using the Unicode encoding. The main file system of macOS is HFS Plus. MacOS and Windows support different file systems. Once the formatting process is finished, you should be able to transfer files to the newly formatted flash drive. Depending on the size and speed of your flash drive, it may take a minute or two.

With everything set, you may click on the Erase button to start the formatting process.

If you’re not sure which option you should choose, continue reading this article to find out more information about the main file systems used by macOS and Windows. Before you can click on the Erase button located in the Erase tab, you must select which file system you would like to use and give it a name.

Select your storage device from the list on the left and click on the Erase tab.

#HOW TO REFORMAT A USB DRIVE SERIAL#

At the bottom of the main window are storage device details, including disk description, connection type, USB serial number, total capacity, write status, S.M.A.R.T. The application will appear on the screen, and you will see the main window, with a list of available storage devices on the left and various disk management options on the right. Go to Applications and Utilities and launch Disk Utility.Connect the flash drive that you want to format.Your Mac computer comes with a handy utility appropriately called Disk Utility, which can be used to format any storage device.

#HOW TO REFORMAT A USB DRIVE MAC OS X#

In this article, we are taking a closer look at the Disk Utility, which comes with all recent versions of the Mac OS X operating system and how you can use it to format USB drive on Mac. Some flash drives have to be formatted first before you can store files on them. Not every flash drive out there can be used with a Mac computer right out of the box.

How to reformat a usb drive