MS-DOS formatted flash drive unusable on Sierra, High Sierra

Question

Level 1

18 points

MS-DOS formatted flash drive unusable on Sierra, High Sierra

I need to be able to share large files with Windows users.

In the past, I have put such files on USB flash drives formatted as MS-DOS and have had no problems with creating the files on them in my Mac, then giving them to Windows users, who can read the files without problems.

Today I tried to put a 9 gb MOV file on a 32 gb Samsung USB drive formatted as it came out of the box with MS DOS.

I got a message saying the file I wanted to put on the flash drive was too large for the drive as formatted.

I tried a similar 32Gb SanDisk drive and got the same message.

Any idea what I can do here?

Of course I could format the Flash Drives as Mac drives, but then my colleagues running windows could not read what was on the drive.

The .mov file was originally created via an iPad camera and transferred to my desktop Mac running Sierra.

I tried the transfer again on my laptop which is running High Sierra with similar results.

thanks for any help

Caroline

Posted on Jul 9, 2018 10:05 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Luis Sequeira1

Level 9

73,518 points

Jul 9, 2018 11:14 AM in response to cdeegan

That is a known limitation of the FAT32 disk format.

Files can be no larger than 4GB.

You can solve this problem by formatting the flash drive as ExFAT instead.

This format is readable in both systems and supports large files.

Don't forget that formatting erases everything on the drive so if you do it make sure to have copies of the files elsewhere.

Reply

Answer 2

Eau Rouge

Level 8

42,656 points

Jul 9, 2018 11:14 AM in response to cdeegan

There was an issue with High Sierra which meant on disks/ USBs that were formatted as FAT 32 you could only load files that were under 2Gbs in size instead of the normal 4Gbs, this was resolved with the introduction of High Sierra 10.13.4

The best thing to do in High Sierra is to open Disk Utility, select View from the menubar, select Show All Devices. Select the disk in the sidebar, NOT the indented Volume and select Erase, give the Disk a name, choose ExFAT for the format, and in Scheme select Master Boot Record, press Erase. Now see if you can read your USBs on both Mac and PC.

Reply

MS-DOS formatted flash drive unusable on Sierra, High Sierra

Similar questions