You have been asked to format some USB sticks but, being a beginner in the PC world, you don’t know how to do it? Have you recently switched to Mac and can’t find the right option to format your portable hard drives? Are you undecided about which file system to use to format your USB sticks? Don’t panic. Give me five minutes of your time and I will try to clarify all the doubts you have on the subject.
We will see together how to format USB on all the latest versions of Windows, on macOS and on the very popular Linux distro Ubuntu. We will also find out how to avoid recovering data deleted after formatting, how to act in the event of a “problematic” USB stick and what is the file system – i.e. the data organization system on the device – that best suits your needs.
In short, if you need to format a USB drive and you don’t know how to do it, read the instructions below and I assure you that you will be able to complete the operation correctly. The procedure to follow is the same for both USB sticks and portable hard drives. So stop wasting your time and let’s get straight to the action. There are some USB devices that are just waiting to be “refurbished”!
Index
- How to format usb on windows
- How to Format USB on Mac
- How to format USB on Ubuntu
- How to format write protected USB
- How to format unrecognized USB
- Which file system to choose?
How to format usb on windows
Do you use a PC equipped with Windows ? Then know that you can format USB sticks and portable hard drives by simply accessing their properties and pressing a special button. To be precise, you must open the File Explorer (the yellow folder icon located in the system tray, at the bottom of the screen), select the item This PC from the left sidebar and locate the flash drive icon or of the disk to be formatted.
At this point, right-click on the drive icon to format and select the Format item from the menu that appears. In the window that opens, select the file system with which to format the drive from the appropriate drop-down menu, type the name to be assigned to the drive in the Volume label field and choose whether or not to implement a quick format (keeping or removing the tick the appropriate option). Once all the settings have been adjusted, press the Start buttonand wait for the formatting to take place. If you deselect the quick format option, the procedure will take longer because Windows will check the integrity of the disk and identify any bad sectors on the latter.
Note: with the quick format procedure, the free space on flash drives and portable hard drives is not reclaimed. This means that as long as the drives are not overwritten with other files, you can recover deleted files from them. To perform free space reclamation — that is, overwrite the deleted data with “empty” information that makes it impossible to recover the latter — you can use the complete format function. Or, if you want to do multiple writes to the disk, you can turn to software like HDD LLF Low Level Format , as explained in my tutorial on how to format an external hard drive . Be careful not to wipe SSDs, or you would reduce the life of these drives.
How to Format USB on Mac
On Mac you can format USB simply by starting the Disk Utility found in the Other folder of the Launchpad and selecting the drive to format from the left sidebar, in the window that opens.
Then go to the Initialize tab , choose the file system to be used for formatting the drive from the Format drop-down menu , type the name you want to assign to the volume in the Name field and press the Initialize button to start formatting.
If you want to avoid the risk that someone, using suitable software for the purpose, can recover files from keys and hard disks that you have formatted with your Mac, before starting the format press the Security Options button (if available; on SSD it is not recommended because it would reduce the life of the disk) and move the indicator that appears to the safer item (be aware that, by doing so, formatting will last much longer). For more details, you can read my tutorial on how to format USB flash drives on Mac .
How to format USB on Ubuntu
If you use Ubuntu , you can format a USB stick or external hard drive in a very simple way. All you have to do is click on the Ubuntu logo located on the left side of the screen, look for the Disks application and start it.
In the window that opens, select the drive icon to format from the left sidebar, press the gear icon located at the top right and select the Format disk item from the menu that appears.
Then set the Compatible with all systems and devices (MBR/DOS) option from the Partitioning drop-down menu and click the Format button twice consecutively to start formatting. If you want to prevent potential file recovery from Ubuntu-formatted drives, select the Overwrite existing data with zeroes option from the Erase drop-down menu .
Want more information on how to format USB sticks on Ubuntu ? Then you can read my special guide on the subject.
How to format write protected USB
If you are unable to complete the formatting of a stick because the unit is protected and you are using the Windows terminal , you can act via the File Explorer or, alternatively, via the Command Prompt . In the first case, to go into more detail, you can use the Registry Editor by going to the path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > StorageDevicePolicies , press the WriteProtect item located on the right, type 0 in the Value data field and click on the OK button .
Through Mac , however, you can act directly through Disk Utility, the same tool I told you about earlier to format USB sticks on Mac, going precisely to format the drive by setting high security.
For more details you can read and put into practice one of the solutions listed in my tutorial on how to format a protected USB stick .
How to format unrecognized USB
The PC does not recognize your USB stick and informs you that, consequently, you cannot proceed with the formatting. However, you still need to format it urgently, in the shortest possible time. Don’t panic, you can proceed by repairing the flash drive and then formatting it with the file system that is most useful to you.
To proceed, on Windows , go to Control Panel > All Control Panel Items > Device Manager . At this point, from the list you see, expand the Disk drives menu , right-click on the name of the problematic USB stick and select the Update driver option .
Then, in the panel that appears on the screen, press the item Search for drivers automatically and wait for them to be updated. Once done, restart your PC and the stick should be detected.
On Mac , however, you can try using Disk Utility . Go to Launchpad > More > Disk Utility , then select the flash drive from the side menu, press the SOS icon located at the top and then click on the Run button in the panel you see opening in the center of the screen. In this way, whatever the error present in the pendrive will be resolved.
Once you have followed these precautions you can proceed with the actual formatting, as described above for Windows and macOS .
Which file system to choose?
Now you know how to format USB but maybe you still have doubts about the file systems to use to put “as new” your keys and your hard disks. Well, let’s try to find out together which file system is best suited to your needs.
- FAT32– it is a very dated file system, and for this reason it manages to ensure a very high level of compatibility with all operating systems and multimedia devices, therefore it is configured as excellent if you want to know how to format USB for TVand similar. Drives formatted in FAT, in fact, are fully compatible with Windows, macOS, Linux, Smart TVs, multimedia decoders, video game consoles and many other devices. However, they have two major limitations: they cannot accommodate single files larger than 4GB and they suffer from severe data fragmentation (which makes their performance less and less brilliant). It should also be noted that some operating systems and some devices do not allow you to format USB drives larger than 32GB in FAT32. To overcome this problem you need to use the Fat32Formatter software . Use FAT32 only if you need the highest possible degree of compatibility and you don’t have to work with files larger than 4GB. If you want to know, detail how to format USB to FAT32, you can read my tutorial dedicated to the topic .
- ExFAT– is an evolution of FAT32 which does not have the 4GB limit and suffers from a lower degree of data fragmentation. Its level of compatibility with operating systems and multimedia devices is high, but not as high as that of FAT32. It is the most recommended file system for those who have to use USB sticks and hard drives on various devices and various operating systems. If you want to know in detail how to format USB in exFAT , you can read my tutorial dedicated to the subject .
- NTFS– is the default file system of Windows. It doesn’t have the 4GB limit of FAT32, it suffers less fragmentation but unfortunately it can’t guarantee the same level of compatibility. On Macs, for example, NTFS drives are read-only and not write-only unless you use third-party drivers . Choose the NTFS file system only if you need to use your drives primarily on Windows PCs.
- APFS/HFS+– are the default macOS file systems. The former was developed recently, is faster, compresses data better, and is more secure. However it has extremely limited compatibility with other systems. The second, however, has a very low degree of fragmentation, has no stringent limits on file size, but outside the Mac world it is almost unusable. On Windows, for example, drives formatted in HFS+ can only be read and written after installing the appropriate third-party drivers . These are file systems to choose exclusively if you intend to use the USB, or in any case the units in question, exclusively on a Mac.
To summarize: if you want to know how to format USB for Mac and Windows opt for exFAT or FAT32 file systems; if you are only interested in compatibility with Windows you can use NTFS; finally, if you need the key to be compatible only with macOS, opt for APFS or HFS +. Simple, isn’t it?