Formatting a USB flash stick into FAT32

Question

Formatting a USB flash stick into FAT32

Hey guys,

I've bought a flash stick to carry around with me. What I want to is reformat it to FAT32 so I can transfer files between my Windows machine.

Disk utility formats it fine, and Mac OS reads it fine. But, when I plug the stick into any Windows machine. It tells me that it cannot be read, and that it needs reformatting.

Am I doing anything wrong? And how can I fix this?

Cheers

 Intel iMac (mid 2007, 20", 2GHz, 4GB RAM)  MacBook (late 2009) , Mac OS X (10.6.2),  16GB iPhone 3G  2 GB iPod Shuffle 

Posted on Mar 2, 2010 4:07 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Mar 2, 2010 4:18 PM in response to compleidiot23

Easiest answer: Try formatting the flash stick on the Windows computer.

Arch

Reply

Answer 2

Mar 2, 2010 4:26 PM in response to compleidiot23

Another easy solution. In Disk Utility, go to the partition tab and click "options." Choose the "Master Boot Record" instead of the default Apple-based choices. Once I found this, I can, so far, easily format my flash drives with FAT32 on the Mac and have them readable on a PC.
.

Reply

Answer 3

Mar 16, 2010 2:45 PM in response to Arch Riker

Same problem here - formatting FAT USB drives (a memory stick and 3 microSD cards) results in a FAT drive that only works on Macs (I tried Windows 7, Vista, camera, etc).
Tried to reformat a 4GB microSD in Vista (as recommended above) and Vista only offered to create a 200MB partition (it seems that it found this much unused space on the drive). On the Mac both partitions were visible.
Tried formatting the microSD on the Mac as HFS+ in the hope that Vista would offer to reformat the whole drive - unfortunately Vista just said it couldn't format the disk.

I've had this problem on two 10.6.2 machines and am surprised that it isn't more widely reported. Personally I'd been confused and blamed the other devices and the microSDs themselves until I finally deduced that 10.6.2 was to blame

Reply

Answer 4

Mar 16, 2010 6:05 PM in response to Syed Faruque

In Disk Utility, selecting the disk, going to Partition, selecting '1 partition', then choosing options, "Master Boot Record" did the trick but 10.6.3 really should change this [back] to the default behaviour since choosing a FAT32 file system when using a Mac normally means you need maximum compatibility.

Reply

Answer 5

Mar 17, 2010 1:36 AM in response to Syed Faruque

thanks guys, sorry i haven't replied, i don't have the net at home anymore.

right now, i can't do any testing because I lost my flash stick on the bus.

but I will keep this question open, and hopefully 10.6.3 fixes this issue

Reply

Answer 6

Aug 2, 2010 4:56 PM in response to compleidiot23

I think the issue is fixed with the latest release of Snow Leopard.

Reply