Good day friends. I decided to write a help article for those who have somehow lost their data on a flash drive or disk. This article will only talk about the Mac operating system. You can find information on recovering files from a flash drive and on a disk on the Windows operating system on the Internet. There is a lot of such information, but very little on Mac OS.
There are quite a lot of programs on Windows that recover data from flash drives and disks, and many of them are free. The same cannot be said about Mac OS. For the latter, there are only a few programs that are guaranteed (well, maybe 90%) to be able to recover your data, unless, of course, your laptop burned out and a hammer didn’t fall on the flash drive.
Programs for data recovery from flash drives and disks
1. Disk Drill
The most famous program in the business for Mac OS and perhaps the most effective. At least judging by the reviews of Mac users, the official website of this program and just people on the Internet. Disk Drill works with MacBook Pro, Air, iPod, Mac Mini and iMac laptops. This infidel program works with both HDD and SSD. As for flash drives, this is generally Disk Drill’s strong point. SD Card, XD Cards, regular Compact flash, MMC Card and many other external storage media are restored by this program. And what’s most interesting: a very small percentage of non-recovery, when many other programs have a fairly high percentage (especially in programs for Windows). One gets the feeling that Disk Drill would recover data even from a lost flash drive (this would be very relevant :)))
2. R-Studio
A good program for recovering data on hard drives and external HDDs and flash cards. The program works with almost all known file systems (FAT12/16/32, NTFS and others). Reviews about this program are not bad (I haven’t seen any bad ones). Not the most popular program, but perhaps just not well-promoted (unlike disk drill)
3.Mac Data Recovery
A good and also FREE program for data recovery on external media and HDD/SSD drives is Stellar Phoenix Macintosh Data Recovery. Works with any media and any data formats. Restoring files from a flash drive with Macintosh Data Recovery is a pleasure, since, in my opinion, it has the most ideal interface.
4. Data Rescue
Disk recovery is always an unpleasant story, scary, because you don’t know whether you can recover everything or not. Data Rescue is an excellent program for recovering data from a damaged system. If your Mac OS system has crashed, then the most important thing in this situation is to save important files from the disk, and not the system itself. The system can be reinstalled.
Well, actually, I can’t offer any more candidates for data recovery on Mac OS and flash drives, since I don’t know other programs. In the comments you can write programs that you have used and that really helped. All the best.
In the modern world, everyone knows what a flash drive is and uses it, if not daily, then very often. Sometimes flash drives have to be formatted in order to get a completely clean medium and do it quickly, without deleting files and folders one by one.
To get a blank flash card in Windows, just click the “Format” item in the context menu and wait for the process to complete, but on Mac OS there is no this item in the context menu. As a result, new users of Apple's operating system often have a question: how to format a flash drive on a Mac?
Doing this is not much more difficult than on Windows, and these instructions will convince you of this.
To get a formatted flash drive, you don’t need to install any additional programs or perform complex actions - everything is much simpler. The algorithm of actions is as follows.
1. Connect the flash drive to a computer running Mac OS
2. Find and open the program "Disk Utility". This program is installed by default on all Mac OS computers. To do this, press the keyboard shortcut ctrl+space and in the Spotlight pop-up window, start typing the title "Disk Utility" or just open this program via Finder -> Programs -> Utilities -> Disk Utility.
3. In the Disk Utility program window that opens, find your flash drive on the left. On the right side, open the tab "Erase", select the file system format and the name of the flash drive and click the button below "Erase".
4. Confirm your intention to format the flash drive in a pop-up message.
That's all. As a result of these steps, your flash drive is completely formatted and ready for use again.
Formatting a USB flash drive on Mac OS will take place without third-party programs, since this feature is included in the standard functions of your Macbook by default.
What is formatting and why is it needed?
Formatting a USB flash drive will allow us to completely clear its contents and make changes to the file layout, thanks to which the file system will be formed. In other words, formatting will change the way your files are written and stored to the format you choose.
You will need formatting if the computer no longer sees the flash drive, writes files to it, or begins to display it incorrectly. During the formatting process, all files will be erased from the USB flash drive, thanks to this you can rid it of viruses. Also, many flash drives are initially designed for Windows; to use this on Mac OS, you will have to change the format of its file system.
Formatting a flash drive on Mac OS: all methods
The first thing you will have to do is launch Disk Utility. To find it, go to the following path: Programs - Utilities - Disk Utility.
How to format a flash drive in Mac format
Formatting a flash drive in FAT, ExFAT, eFAT
We perform all the same actions as in the previous instructions, except for the last one.
Convert to NTSF format from MacBook
All previous file systems had an available memory limit of 4 GB. If it interferes, you will have to change the format to NTSF. To do this, download special drivers for Mac OS.
Video tutorial: “How to format a flash drive on Mac OS”
Splitting a USB flash drive into several disks
Dividing a flash drive into two or more partitions will give you the opportunity to format each partition separately into its own format. Let's say one disk will have the ExFAT file system, and the second NTFS. When the flash drive is divided into parts, all data will be erased. Follow these steps to get a flash drive with multiple disks.
Electronics manufacturers are trying in every possible way to convince us that we live in a world of wireless technology. However, nothing has yet been invented better than the old, proven flash drive.
For fast data transfer from one device to another, for communication on different operating systems, for reliable data storage, it is still convenient to use external storage devices.
The only problem is to correctly format the flash drive or disk. Now we’ll tell you how to make sure that both macOS and Windows can work with such a flash drive without any problems in the future.
Which file system to choose
Among the many existing file systems, the most popular at the moment are considered to be: FAT32, NTFS, exFAT, APFS (Apple File System), HFS+ (Mac OS Extended).
From the box Windows fully supports FAT32, NTFS and exFAT, and macOS– FAT32, exFAT, HFS+ and APFS (with macOS High Sierra and higher).
Using third-party drivers and utilities, you can teach Windows to work with HFS+ and APFS, or add NTFS support to macOS.
Attention! When formatting a flash drive or other storage device, all data on it will be deleted; save everything you need in advance.
The solutions available today vary greatly in terms of stability and data transfer speed. In order not to load the system with unnecessary software and not waste time when copying or transferring files, it is better to use a file system that is supported by both Windows and macOS.
The choice is between FAT32 And exFAT.
The main disadvantage of FAT32 is the file size limitation. To such a disk will not work write a file of size more than 4GB. Considering the presence of large databases, backups, projects or video files, it is better not to be tied to the outdated FAT32 file system and choose exFAT.
How to format a flash drive on macOS
1. Launch the application Disk Utility through Spotlight or Launchpad.
2. In the left pane, select the drive you need to format.
3. Click the button Erase.
4. Specify the file system exFAT and confirm the action.
How to format a flash drive in Windows
1. Open File Explorer.
2. Select the drive you need to format.
3. In the context menu, select Format…
4. Specify the file system exFAT, set other formatting options if necessary.
5. Confirm the procedure.
The finished flash drive in exFAT format will be recognized by both a Windows computer and any Mac. In this case, it will be possible to both read data from the drive and write to it without a limit on the file size of 4 GB.
Formatting not only deletes all files from a USB drive, but can also put it in order if it suddenly refuses to work on one of the devices. These instructions will help you properly clean the flash drive and will be useful for both experienced users and beginners.
How to format a flash drive in Windows
Step 1: Launch the system format tool
After connecting the flash drive, open “My Computer”. When the drive icon appears here, right-click on it and click “Format”.
Step 2. Specify the necessary parameters and format the flash drive
A file system is a way of organizing data on a flash drive. Choose the one that suits you best.
- FAT32. The flash drive will be fully compatible with Windows, macOS, as well as most USB devices such as game consoles, radios and media players. But you will not be able to write files larger than 4 GB to it.
- exFAT. The drive will be fully compatible with Windows, starting with version XP SP2, as well as Mac OS X Snow Leopard and newer. But many USB devices will not work with it. But you can write files of any size to the flash drive.
- NTFS. The drive will be fully compatible with Windows. However, in macOS you can only view files on a flash drive without the ability to write to it. Many USB devices will not see the drive. On the other hand, you can save files of any size on it.
Once you have made your selection, specify the cluster size (distribution unit size). This parameter determines the minimum amount of memory that a flash drive can allocate for one file. For example, if the cluster size is 64 KB, and the size of the written file is 12 KB, then the latter will take up at least 64 KB of memory.
Choose a small cluster size if you plan to store many small files on a flash drive. This will help to use free space efficiently, but the speed of the flash drive will be lower.
If you want to store large files, then it is reasonable to specify a higher value to speed up. If you cannot find the optimal value, the easiest way is to leave the standard cluster size.
In the Volume Label field, enter the desired drive name.
Make sure that “Quick (clean table of contents)” is checked. This will save you time on cleaning. But if you want the system to check the flash drive for errors during formatting, then uncheck the box - then the process will take much longer. Click "Start" and wait for the procedure to complete.
If necessary, the file system can be changed again. To do this, simply reformat the drive.
How to format a protected flash drive
Sometimes the computer refuses to format the drive due to write protection being set in the Windows settings. You can disable it in the Registry Editor.
Open the registry editor: use the Windows + R key combination, paste in the line that appears regedit and press Enter.
In the folder tree, select the following path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE → SYSTEM → CurrentControlSet → Control → StorageDevicePolicies (the last directory may not be listed).
Inside the StorageDevicePolicies folder, double-click the WriteProtect option, change its value from 1 to 0 and save the result. Close Registry Editor, disconnect the drive, and restart your PC.
If your flash drive has a switch, it may be physically protected. To enable recording, move it to a different position.
If the StorageDevicePolicies directory is missing, right-click on the Control directory, then select New → Partition and name it StorageDevicePolicies.
Right-click on the StorageDevicePolicies section, then “New” → “DWORD Value” or “QWORD Value” (depending on the bitness of your OS: 32 or 64 bits). Name the new parameter WriteProtect, double-click it and check that its value is 0.
Close the Registry Editor, disconnect the USB flash drive and restart your PC.
After these steps, most likely, the protection will be removed, and you will be able to format the drive.
Windows may report that it is unable to format the drive. This means there is an error somewhere. Moreover, sometimes the flash drive itself asks to format it, but a failure in the drive or PC does not allow this to be done.
In this case, instead of standard Windows tools, try special programs that restore the correct operation of drives and format them. Such software can usually be found on the website of the flash drive manufacturer. For example, JetFlash Online Recovery is for drives from Transcend. Or USB Flash Drive Online Recovery - for ADATA brand flash drives.
But there are also universal utilities that can forcibly format almost any drive. For example, the free program USB Disk Storage Format Tool. It is very easy to use and understanding it is not difficult.
If errors cannot be corrected using third-party programs, the drive may be damaged and needs repair.
How to format a flash drive on macOS
Step 1: Launch Disk Utility
With the drive connected, open Finder → Programs → Utilities → Disk Utility.
In the left panel, highlight your USB drive. Then click on the “Erase” tab at the top of the window.
Step 2. Format the flash drive by selecting the desired options
In the window that appears, select one of the following file systems for the flash drive.
- OS X Extended (Journaled). The drive will be fully compatible with macOS. But on Windows you won't even open it. Not all media players and other USB devices will see the flash drive. But it will be able to store files of any size.
- MS-DOS(FAT/FAT32), exFAT- the features of these file systems are given above.
Having selected the desired one from the listed options, click on the “Erase” button and wait until formatting is completed.
Again, you can change the file system every time you format the flash drive.
What to do if you can’t format a flash drive
Problems with formatting in macOS can occur if the flash drive is damaged or if there is a physical switch on its case. In the first case, all that remains is to take the drive to a service center. In the second, it is enough to remove the protection by pressing the switch.
How to recover a formatted flash drive
As stated above, when formatting a drive, you erase all its contents. If you forget about this, you may lose important files. In addition, the information recorded on the flash drive may become inaccessible due to software failures. Fortunately, in many cases such problems are easy to solve with the help of special ones.