Flash drives for mac os x

If your mac is having problems identifying a flash drive it may be that you did not properly eject a drive that was previously connected to your machine. If your flash drive states that it was formatted with one of these volume types, you should. Can not boot from flash drive mac os x 10 apple community. Disk drill will scan your usb flash drive also called a pen drive and find files that have been deleted. The first format, fat32, is fully compatible with mac os x, though with some drawbacks. Open terminal, which is in the utilities folder of your applications folder. These are windows volume formats, but they can be read by mac os x. If you have an old flash drive or one that was formatted to work with windows or another operating system, you can still format your flash drive to work on a mac. Next, its best to format your usb device as mac os extended journaled. Before you proceed, make sure you have a backup of the flash drive s contents or that you dont care that the data will be erased. If you only use a mac computer, you can format your thumb drive so it can work on windows systems.

How to quickly make a mac os x bootable usb on windows. The best usb flash drives for apple macbook in 2020. How to install os x mavericks from usb flash drive. Looking for an offline tool for operating system recovery. How to make a bootable flash installer of os x or macos. When using macos flash drives can be connected and used to transfer files. How to create an os x flash drive installer macworld.

Volume format most manufacturers use the fat 32 or msdos fat volume format. This is problematic if you need to reinstall os x or macos on a newly formatted hard drive, if youre in an. Most flash drives are in fat32 or fat16 format, and can be used on either a windows pc, or a mac. Os x mavericks is available in the mac app store now, but its only an upgradebut if you want to do a clean install, youll need to manually burn an installation flash drive. Go to the applications folder on your macs hard drive, then go to the utilities folder, and launch disk utility. First of all, use the mac app store installer for macos sierra, which you can get here. How to create an os x flash drive installer instead of using the system installer disc that came with your mac, create a system installer flash drive, like the one that comes with the macbook air. As with all os x upgrades, once you run the installer on your system, it disappears from your applications folder. Tackle external hard drives randomly ejecting in os x. Install os x mountain lion from usb flash drive appducate. Make sure that it has at least 12gb of available storage and is formatted as mac os extended. Connect the usb flash drive or other volume that youre using for the bootable installer.

Erasing that flash drive on your mac, and changing to macos extended format will make the drive operate somewhat faster, and more reliably on your mac. Flash drives can hold any type of data, making them an ideal way to back up your files. Even so, its still easy to create a usb installation disk for os x lion if you want to install lion on a freshly formatted hard drive, if youre in an emergency booting situation, or if you need to repair your mac s hard drive. For apple mac users, there are two ways to format a usb flash drive to fat32, including disk utility and. Smaller external hard drives, ssds, and usb flash keys format quickly, while a larger hard drive may take a while longer. As usual, apple no longer supply a bootable usb flash drive with latest os x releases including the new os x catalina. While downloading an os x or macos version offers instant gratification, it means youre left without an installer. The sandisk showed up in disk utility on their mac but not on mine same os. They process was simple, easy, and nohassle at all. Unfortunately, os x doesnt give any indication about file transfer speedstimes. How to recover deleted files from a usb flash drive on mac.

If os x isnt booting completely or is locking up, you cant launch disk utility. The overwhelming majority of usb flash drives you buy are going to come in one of two formats. Use external storage devices with mac apple support. A flash drive is a small selfpowered drive that connects to a computer directly through a usb port. Its both mac and pc compatible, so you can use it to transfer files between both macs and pcs. Apple mac os x lion is now available to general public. The videos below demonstrate the complete process of formatting an external hard drive for full mac os x compatibility, this uses the. Click the applications folder if using a finder window applications will be in the left side menu. The reasons behind the problem of a usb device not showing up are various, including the usb port is not working, usb drive corruption, virus infection, macos faulty, etc. How to safely remove a flash drive from a mac os x.

When you need flash drive data recovery software for mac, disk drill is your best choice. There was a separate track for each macwindowslinux and several manual and errorprone steps along the way. How to create an os x mavericks usb installation drive. How to install macos or os x on a new hard drive for your mac. Then i brought the sandisk flash drive to a local computer store today to see if it was recognized on their macs. How to create a bootable installer for macos apple support. If you press and hold the control key during this step, your selection is saved in startup disk preferences, so it persists until you change it. How to select a different startup disk apple support. In this tutorial well show you how to create a bootableinstallable copy of os x 10. Start by pressing cmd space to reveal the spotlight search bar at the top right hand side of the screen. When copying that same folder from the flash drive to my hard drive the two were close1 minute 36 seconds for the os x extended format and 1 minute and 40 seconds for the msdos format.

You can get it back by holding down the option key while clicking on the. Insert the flash drive or hard drive you want to format for windows compatibility. There are just certain parts that need extra attention however, i will highlight these areas. More reasons why you want a bootable usb flash drive takes too long to download entire system. Type or paste one of the following commands in terminal. Tried 4 times, each time it came back mac os extended journaled. So, if users anticipate using the flash drive with more than one operating system, they will definitely benefit from the fat32 file system.

Select your startup disk, then click the arrow under its icon, or press return. With the arrival of os x lion in 2011, apple changed its softwaredelivery method to a download model with the mac app store instead of using physical dvds and other media. Hold down the option key immediately after you hear the start up chord to display the mac os x boot menu, and choose the recovery hd volume. This guide will teach you how to create a bootable usb flash drive of mac os x lion 10.

This mode is only available on apple computers made after 2009 that were running os x lion or later. Its a universal format that is compatible with mac os xmacos, windows, linux and dos systems. Osx yosemite how to create a bootable usb flash drive. I would recommend this to anyone who need to update their software, and i will be looking for. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. How to scan a drive for errors on your mac dummies. Read on for a quick overview of the steps needed to recover files from a flash drive on mac os x. I mean, some devices generate such issue but others do not on the very same mac.

So much so, that along with partitioning internal mac hard drives, users are partitioning external drives and flash drives too in order to make them boot multiple operating systems on the run when required. Failure to eject a usb drive before pulling it out of the port can cause the os to view the ports status incorrectly and may impact its ability to be identified and accessed. The apple mac os x lion thumb drive was incredible simple to use. Find a spare computer and join the fight against covid19 from home. Now that you have all the necessary ingredients, youre ready to make a mac os x bootable usb using the dmg file of the operating system with the steps below. In this buying guide, well help you choose the best flash drive that works with your macbook pro. Find the best flash drives for macs based on what customers said. How to format a flash drive to work on os x and windows. The steps necessary to create a flash drive to install mac os x mountain lion are fairly simple. Doubleclick on macintosh hd or in the finder menu click file new finder window 2.

If you need different or older os after replacing hard drive. In addition, youll learn tips and tricks on how to. Its great that it works with both my iphone x and my mac book pro. If your mac is from before 2009 or never had os x lion, click here to jump to the next section. So, to figure out the effective solutions for your own case, you need to take time to have some basic check, exclude the irrelevant issues, identify the potential risk. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 on mac os xmacos. Starting with os x lion, apple did away with dvds and other media as a method of installing software and switched to a download model instead. Os x bootable flash drive merrillville surplus copy supply. Learn the steps to take to ensure youre doing it correctly. Is the flash drive in a mac format, to make this process easier, or is it in a pc format. Use disk utility from usb to format new hard drive. Formatting an sd card is quite straight forward with mac os x. I then tried a sandisk 2gb cruzer flash drive on my mac os x 10.

One high quality usb flash drive with 16gb of storage. In my experience the mac finder warning disk not ejected properly arises due to lack of full compatibility of the external device. This is the primary reason more mac users too are taking the partitioning road. Guid partition once you do this, open the macos sierra installer. If you need a crossplatform option, consider using exfat for your drive insteadboth windows and macos can read these drives without any additional software. Apfs vs mac os extended which mac disk format is best. A crossplatform tool to flash os images onto sd cards and usb drives safely and easily. The simplest way to install macos or os x on a new hard drive is by using internet recovery mode.