Format Usb Flash Drive Mac Terminal

Posted : admin | On 16-09-2021

It offers a tool “Disk Manager”. It can help Mac users securely and quickly format USB flash drive under Mac OS. Very easy to use and 100% safe. The top 5 USB flash drive formatting software for Mac can help us easily and securely format USB flash drive under Mac OS. Just select one of them to format USB flash drive under Mac OS. Alternatively (in case the disk does not show up on your desktop), open Finder, on the sidebar menu locate your USB drive under Devices, right-click and select “Get Info.”. In the new dialogue, pay attention to General Format, where it says “MS-DOS (FAT32)”.

You system may have been suffering from a Malware attack or you may have to reset your system since you have forgotten the admin account's password. Are you looking for the best way to burn ISO to USB for Mac? The process to burn ISO to USB Mac is not a simple task at all.

Since ISO is not a native Mac file type, you would have to work around a few methods or even make use of a third party tool in order to perform this operation.This article will talk about a few ways in which you can get this done for free. Some methods are pretty easy while some may seem a bit more complicated and may not deliver the required results.

Way 1: Burn ISO to USB Mac Using Terminal

You can make use of the default command line interface on your Mac system to perform the task of burning ISO to USB. Follow the outlined steps given below to burn ISO to USB Mac.

Step 1: On your Mac system, insert a USB flash drive.

Reformat Flash Drive Mac

Step 2: Launch Terminal by selecting Applications > Utilities > Terminal.

Step 3: Here, enter 'diskutil list' and hit the Enter key.

Step 4: All the drives will be listed out so that it becomes easier for you to locate the correct identifier for the USB flash drive. Make a note of it and unmount the drive by keying in 'sudo unmount/dev/driveidentifier which you noted down.

Step 5: If prompted, enter the Admin password and enter the following command and hit the Enter key:
dd if=/path/toimage.iso of=/dev/driveidentifier

The above command will burn the ISO to USB to the drive specified by you. However, this method may seem complicated to some users. You can move ahead to the next solution if you find it complicated.

Way 2: Write ISO to USB Mac Using UNetbootin

You can make use of this utility for burning ISO to USB on Mac only when you have access to Linux distributions like Ubuntu. Once you have made sure that the utility is installed on your Mac, follow the steps below to burn ISO or DMG to USB.

Generate zwave network key random. Step 1: From the 'Distribution' section at the top of the software, choose the required Linux distribution. You can even provide the ISO file by clicking on the Diskimage radio button and then using the ellipsis icon to choose the ISO file.

Step 2: Specify the target drive and click on 'OK' and the bootable drive would be created.

This method is possible only if you have a Linux distribution like Ubuntu.

Way 3: Cretae ISO to USB on Mac Using Virtualbox

If none of the above suggested methods work, this method would surely help you in burning ISO to USB for free. Refer the steps mentioned below to do so.

Step 1: Install the Virtualbox client on your Mac system.

Step 2: Make a guest OS on Windows and load this Windows ISO to the system.

Step 3: Leave the other settings in the default state if you are not aware of how you can change them.

Step 4: Follow the on screen instructions carefully and then boot your system in Windows OS.

Step 5: Download the ISO burning tool once system is booted in Windows and insert the USB flash drive. Now you can burn the ISO image to USB.

Although this method is pretty effective, it takes a long time and some amount of technical expertise is required in order to get satisfactory results.

Extra Tips: How to Burn ISO to USB on Windows

If you just want to burn ISO to USB on Windows 10/8.1/8/7 system, then PassFab for ISO is your best option. This is a prfoessional program which enabled you to burn bootable ISO to USB on any Windows-based computer. You can either download Windows System ISO or Import Local ISO from it. You can even burn CD or DVD if there's no USB in your hand.

Conclusion

Through this article you can get to know different ways in which you can burn ISO or DMG to bootable USB. While some methods are easy, some are way too complicated. If you are looking for a tool to carry out this process for free, you can do that but most of the methods involved in such solutions would be pretty complicated for a novice user and also they end up consuming a lot of your time as well. Instead, you can choose PassFab for ISO tool to carry out the process of burning ISO to USB on Windows. This method is highly recommended as it is very simple and can be completed quickly without any hassles.

Support Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, etc.
Support USB of various brands, such as SanDisk, Kingston, etc.
Support burning ISO to USB flash drive, CD or DVD-ROM
Support GPT and MBR partition types

This simple guide will teach you How to Format a Flash Drive on Mac. Not only this, we will help you pick the best file system for your usb flash drive that you are planning to use on a Mac.

Majority of 49.4% of desktop and laptop computer users in the world use Windows operating system. In contrast, only 27.4% of users use MacOS, obviously for their apple computer. That’s the reason why most of the flash drives in the market are available in Fat32 or NTFS formats which are the most preferred format for windows.

Although the first one, Fat32 is completely compatible with both MacOS as well as Windows, it has some limitations. Fat32 can store files only up to 4 GB of size. The latter one, NTFS is mostly used on the Windows operating system and not an optimal option for MacOS. Extra work is needed to use NTFS on MacOS. If you want to use your flash drive solely for MacOS, it is highly recommended to format your flash drive.

Here, pop-ups the question: How to format a flash drive on a mac?

Contents

1 Before you format a flash drive
- 1.1 Check flash Drive’s File System
2 How to format a flash drive on Mac?

Before you format a flash drive

MacOS supports HFS plus file system. HFS stands for Hierarchical File System.

Apple introduced this file system in 1985 to replace the existing Macintosh File System or MFS. HFS filesystem is modified into HFS plus (Modernly called as MacOS Extended). Before you format a flash drive it is suggested to know what file system your flash drive is in.

Check flash Drive’s File System

You don’t need to do anything special to know your flash drive’s file system. There are 2 ways you can do this.

Method 1: Using Finder

Plug in your flash drive. Now open the Finder and look for your USB device. Then right-click on the drive’s name. Select “Get Info” from the list of options opened.

A new window will open. Just to the right of “Format” is your drive’s file system.

Method 2: Using Disk utility app

Open the Disk Utility app from the utility folder available in the application. Your drive will be on the left column of the window. Click on the partition. Here you can check the current format of your flash drive.

If your flash drive’s file system is MS-DOS or ExFAT you can use it as it is without further formatting. But if it is NTFS, format your flash drive to make it completely compatible with MacOS.

How to format a flash drive on Mac?

Disk Utility application in MacOS is the best option to format a flash drive on MacOS. You can launch this app in two ways.

Step 1: Press Space while holding your command button. A search box will open. Type Disk Utility in the search box and press enter. Alternatively, Open the Finder window and select applications on the left sidebar. Navigate to Utilities and then Disk Utilities.

Step 2: Search for your flash drive on the sidebar of the Disk Utility app and select it by clicking on its name.

Step 3: Now Click the “Erase” button which is located just below the title bar of the window which says “Disk Utility”. This will erase your whole drive and make it a single partition.

Here you can change the name of your USB drive if you wish. This name will be visible on other devices as well if you plug your flash drive into them. Just below the Name section, you can see a section called “Format”.

You will need to choose a format option to change your flash drive’s file system. But which format to choose is the big question now! No need to worry. Read the description of each format given below and choose the format of your choice.

Types of filesystems

Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

This format is considered as default file system format of the Mac OS X drives. It also supports OS X Lion, like Versions. This format will allow you to use your flash drive on Mac without any limitations.

With Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, you can setup OS X startup drive. Make sure you have right files and know how to do it. If you have any issues with a built-in drive you can boot from the external disk. This file system format is highly recommended for MacOS. But you cannot write this flash drive from windows PC once you have formatted it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). You can read files though.

OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)

Go for this type of filesystem if you really need it for some reason. For OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled), the word “File” is different than “file”. It means it’s case sensitive as the name suggests.

OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted)

Same as filesystem just mentioned above but of course with encryption.

OS X Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)

To use a flash drive with this filesystem you will have to set up a password & enter it whenever you plug in your drive into any device.

MS-DOS (FAT)

This is just a name for the FAT32 filesystem in Disk Utility application. FAT32 supports to almost all of the operating systems in the world. This allows you to transfer files from one operating system to other. The best thing about this filesystem is its support to video game systems which include Xbox 360 and PlayStation. This filesystem can be called a universal system. The limitation about FAT32 filesystem is it doesn’t allow files which are bigger than 4 GB in size and also you cannot create a startup drive unlike Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

ExFAT

This is a new type of filesystem and it supports MacOS X 10.6.5 and later. It is same as FAT32 but it supports files larger than 4 GB. As this filesystem is relatively new, it does not on relatively older versions of Mac OS X. If you don’t use any older version of the operating system, you can use this type of filesystem.

Format Mac Usb On Windows

Use ExFAT for this tutorial if you wish to use your flash drive on windows as well on MacOS.