• Insert the flash drive or hard drive you want to format for Windows compatibility. Go to the Applications folder on your Mac’s hard drive, then go to the Utilities folder, and launch Disk Utility.

Python would also work, but it's not a very good language for application programming. Java for mac os x development headers.

• Select the drive you want to format. Warning: the following steps will delete any info you currently have on the drive. • Click the Erase button. • Click the Format menu, then choose either MS-DOS (FAT) or ExFAT. Choose the former if the size of the disk is 32 GB or less.

Choose the latter if the size of the disk is over 32 GB. • Enter a name for the volume (no more than 11 characters). • Click Erase, then click Done. STAFF Steve Sande Publisher, Editor Dennis Sellers Contributing Editor Marty Edwards Contributing Editor Contributors Copyright © 2015 - 2018 Raven Solutions, LLC. All Rights Reserved ABOUT Established February 9, 2015, Apple World Today is a resource for all things Apple and beyond. AWT publishes news stories, credible rumors and how-to's covering a variety of topics daily.

You have options when it comes to formatting a USB drive for use in a PC: FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS. This means if you plug an NTFS-formatted thumbdrive into a Mac you can copy the contents from. How to format a drive for Mac and PC compatibility Posted by Ant on March 11th, 2012 43 Comments If you have an external hard drive or USB flash drive that you’d like to use on both Macs and Windows PCs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing.

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How to Format a USB Drive as exFAT for Mac and Windows Compatibility Since the PC and Mac are two different operating systems, they use different file systems. By default, Macs use HFS, while PCs use NTFS, which are not compatible with each other. If you plan on using an external drive with both Macs and PCs, you should format the disk with the exFAT file system instead. You can format the drive on your Mac or Windows computer. • • How to format a USB drive as exFAT on Mac So how do you know if your USB drive is in the correct format? You do not need to do anything special on the 'Disk Utility' - simply insert the USB drive and open Finder. Right-click the drive icon in the Finder sidebar (or on the desktop) and select Get Info.