How to format a drive for Mac and PC compatibility. If you have an external hard drive or USB flash drive that youd like to use on both Macs and Windows PCs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing. Learn a few ways to make your drive Mac and PC friendly. Need to access or transfer files between Mac and PCAs simple as this task sounds, its not very straightforward for inexperienced users. Since Mac OS X and Windows use totally different file systems, the way a drive is formatted can determine what type of computer it will work with. In fact, there are four ways you can format an external or USB flash drive to achieve varying degrees of compatibility between Macs and PCs. Iphoto 9 5 Download Dmg Photo' title='Iphoto 9 5 Download Dmg Photo' />Lets take a look at them HFSMac OS Xs native file system is HFS also known as Mac OS Extended, and its the only one that works with Time Machine. But while HFS is the best way to format drives for use on Macs, Windows does not support it. If youre only going to be using your external or USB flash drive with certain PCs such as at home or the office you might be interested in a program called Mac. Drive. When you install Mac. Drive on a Windows PC, it will be able to seamlessly read write to HFS drives. This isnt a good solution if you need your drive to work on any PC without installing software, though. NTFSThe native Windows file system is NTFS, which is only partially compatible with Mac OS X. Macs can read files on NTFS drives, but it cannot write to them. So if you need to get files from a PC to your Mac, NTFS is a decent option. Exfat Driver Update. However, you wont be able to move files in the other direction, from Mac to PC. Iphoto 9 5 Download Dmg Photo' title='Iphoto 9 5 Download Dmg Photo' />Toast 16 Titanium makes it easier than ever to burn, copy, capture, edit, convert and share digital media. Toast 16 Pro is a valuable collection of digital media apps. Iphoto 9 5 Download Dmg Photo Mix' title='Iphoto 9 5 Download Dmg Photo Mix' />OS X El Capitan Available to Download Now for All Mac Users. FAT3. 2The most universally supported way to format your drive is with the FAT3. It works with all versions of Mac OS X and Windows. Case closed, right Well, not so fast. Unfortunately, FAT3. For example, you cannot save files that are larger than 4. GB on a FAT3. 2 formatted drive. This is a deal breaker if you work with huge files. The other limitation is the total size of the partition. If you format your FAT3. Windows, the drive partition cannot be larger than 3. GB. If you format it from a Mac running 1. Lion, the drive partition can be up to 2. TB. Much better, except for that pesky 4. GB limit. ex. FATThe ex. FAT file system eliminates the two major deficiencies of FAT3. Awesome, its perfect Almost since ex. FAT is fairly new, it isnt compatible with older Macs and PCs. Any Mac running 1. Snow Leopard or 1. Lion supports ex. FAT, while PCs running Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP1, and Windows 7 are compatible. If you know youll be using computers running updated versions of these operating systems, ex. FAT is the clear best choice. Format a drive using Disk Utility on a Mac. Launch Disk Utility Applications Utilities. Select your external hard drive or USB flash drive from the list on the left. Click on the Erase tab. Select the format Mac OS Extended HFS, MS DOS FAT3. FAT then name the drive. Click the Erase button and the drive will start formatting. Be aware that formatting a drive deletes all of the files on it, so back up anything important before completing this step. Format a drive using Windows. Go to Computer or My Computer in Windows XP. Select your drive from the list and right click on it. Choose Format from the contextual menu. A window will pop up where you can choose the format NTFS, FAT3. FAT. Make sure the allocation unit size is set to default and type in a volume label. Click Start to format the drive.