Jun 24, 2020 Why would you format a USB drive on macOS? There are a few reasons to format a USB drive on macOS. First, to prepare the drive for Time Machine; macOS should handle this for you. Second, to make the drive compatible with Windows or Linux devices, as all three operating systems use slightly different USB formats.
Jun 10, 2020 How to Install macOS Mojave 10.14 on VirtualBox on Windows PC; How to Install macOS Mojave 10.14 on VMware on Windows PC – Install TransMac on Windows. TransMac is a third-party software that allows the Windows users to Create a Bootable USB installer drive for macOS Sierra, macOS High Sierra, macOS Mojave, and macOS Catalina. Jul 26, 2015 How to Create a MacOS X USB Bootable Disk in Windows, How to Create a USB Memory for MacOS Setup - Duration: 9:10. Sor Bilene Bilen Cevaplasın 10,444 views 9:10. Selecting the correct format: macOS Extended (Journaled): This format is specifically designed to work efficiently on MacOS. The format was used by default by all Mac Computers in between 1998 and 2017, being succeeded by APFS. The Extended Journaled format is optimal for mechanical drives and computers working on older versions of Mac.
Formatting is the term used in Windows operating system to erase all content in the drive and make it to initial state. You can format both internal and external drives in Windows 10. USB devices are prone to damage and file corruptions due to usage on multiple computers. So, there are many situations you would like to erase all the content on your USB and format it like a new one. Windows supports file systems like NTFS and FAT for formatting drives.
Unfortunately you can’t use the Windows formatted USBs on your Mac for saving content. Though you can mount the drive to view and copy the content, you can’t write on the drive. In order to write on the USB drive on Mac, you need to format the device into Apple supported file systems like APFS or Mac OS Extended. Similar to Windows 10, you can format USB drives on Mac using Disk Utility app.
1. Formatting USB in Windows 10
First off, ensure your flash drive is already plugged in to your PC. To verify that your system recognizes your flash drive, press “Windows + E” shortcut keys and open “File Explorer”. On the left pane, click on “This PC”. You will see a screen like the one shown below. Under “Devices and drives”, locate your Flash drive.
Check USB Drive in Windows
As you can see above the Flash drive is labeled H in our case. It already has some content occupying the space. Before proceeding with formatting, ensure to copy the content from the drive. Otherwise you will loose all the stored content on the USB drive.
Right click on the flash drive and select “Format” option as shown below.
Format Option
On the window that appears, you’ll get the details of the Flash drive such as capacity, file system and allocation unit size. Check the “Quick Format” option and click on “Start” to begin the formatting process.
Formatting USB Drive
A warning prompt will pop-up as shown indicating formatting will erase all the data on the USB drive. Click “OK” to continue.
This process should take some time depending on the size of the USB and you can see the progress bar running indicating the status. Finally, you will get the below pop-up to confirm that all went all. Click “OK” to complete the formatting process.
Format Complete
Points to Remember
- It is necessary to format the USB before creating a bootable flash drive from ISO file.
- Formatting may fail if there are physical damages on the drive.
- Sometimes formatting reduces the size of the drive by ignoring the corrupted segments.
- Similar to USB, you can format any of the individual partition on the hard drive like C:, D:, etc. on your PC.
2. Formatting USB Drive on Mac
Insert the USB drive on your Mac and follow the below instructions to format.
- Press “Command + Spacebar” to open Spotlight Search box and type “disk utility”.
- Open the “Disk Utility” app from the search results.
- Disk Utility will show the current file system of the USB drive.
- In the below screenshot, it shows as MS-DOS (FAT 32) which is a Windows based file system.
- Click on the “Erase” button and choose the file format from the dropdown. Generally, Mac will choose APFS by default though you can choose the older formats like Mac OS Enabled.
Choose File Format
- Again click on “Erase” button to delete the content on your USB and format it. After completion, you will see a success message like below.
- If you want to partition the USB drive click on the “Partition” button in “Disk Utility”.
- On the next screen, select the format and the size of the partition.
Partition and Format Drive in Mac
- Click “Apply” to create a partition on USB with the selected size.
Wrap Up
Whether you use Mac or Windows based PC, there are lots of possibilities that a portable USB device may get damaged. Sometimes, you can’t access certain bad sectors on the drive making it difficult to read the entire stored content. You can repair the damaged USB to recover the content. However, if it is not possible to repair you can follow the above explained method to format and reuse the drive.
If your Mac suddenly refuses to boot up properly, you might need bootable macOS install USB to make repairs. But how do you create such a disk if all you're left with is a Windows 10 computer? Fortunately, there's a great tool that you can use for free to create bootable macOS media on a USB drive in a Windows 10 environment. This article shows you how to download a macOS DMG file, format a USB drive using a GUID Partition Table, burn the DMG to the drive and boot your Mac from the USB. All the steps except the last one are done on a Windows 10 machine.
Part 1: Download macOS or Mac OS X DMG File
The first step is to get the DMG disk image file for the version of macOS that you want. You can get a copy of the latest macOS version from Apple download portal or App Store here. There are also several other direct download sites that offer various versions of Mac OS X in DMG format rather than the standard APP format that runs on Mac. Since you're working in a Windows environment, you need the DMG rather than the APP file.
Part 2: Format USB Drive to GPT
Mostly, the USB drive was formmated to FAT32 in default when being shipped out from the factory. However, FAT32 can be only used for installing OS with legacy BISO, which doesn't work for macOS. So the next step is to format your USB drive in the GPT partition style in order to burn installation files to the desired USB drive. You can do this in Command Prompt as admin. In elevated Command Prompt (Ctrl+Shift+Enter), input the following series of commands followed by Enter after each line:
Diskpart
List disk
Select Disk X (X stands for the USB drive name that appears after the previous command)
Clean
Convert GPT
Create partition primary
Diskpart
List disk
Select Disk X (X stands for the USB drive name that appears after the previous command)
Clean
Convert GPT
Create partition primary
Part 3: Create Bootable macOS USB from Windows 10
You have now formatted the partition of USB drive. It's time to download UUByte DMG Editor for Windows. Although this is a premium software, you can use the initial free trial period to create a bootable macOS USB drive on Windows 10. After installing the application, follow the sequence of steps shown below:
Step 1: Right-click the software icon on desktop and select 'Run as Administrator' from the contextual menu. Choose 'Run' when prompted.
![Usb Usb](/uploads/1/2/6/5/126533733/954642147.jpg)
Step 2: Insert your formatted USB drive, and click 'Burn' ta on the main screen.
Step 3: Click 'Browse' button to import macOS dmg file into the program. And select the USB drive name from the second row. You can also set a volume labe for that USB drive.
Step 4: Click 'Burn' button at the bottom to start the process. You will see a progress bar and wait around 10 minutes to get it done.
Step 5: Once the progress bar is at 100%, a bootable macOS USB is ready. After that, you can use that USB drive for installing macOS.
This is one of the easiest way to create a bootable macOS USB on a Windows PC. The steps are simple and instructions are pretty clear.
Part 4: Boot macOS Install USB on Mac
Now remove the USB drive and insert it into the Mac computer. To boot from the disk, you need to hold down the option key when you hear the boot chime. This will take you to the Startup Disk Manager, where you should be able to see the USB drive. It might have a different name, but as long as it is bootable, you'll be able to see it there. Once you select it, the computer will boot from the disk and the macOS installation will begin.
Conclusion:
Macos Format Usb For Windows Iso
The whole process might look a bit complicated if this is your first time, but just follow the instructions in this article and you should be fine. That being said, you need to be careful when downloading the DMG file and formatting your USB drive. If you don't do these two steps correctly, the output drive from the UUByte DMG Editor software won't be bootable, which means you can't install macOS using it, and you may need to do the whole thing over again.