Way too complicated but everything else on a mac is way better than windows. I have been a mac user for 2 years now and swear by them but this is probably one of the dumbest things I have seen yet.

This is the first convoluted thing on mac that I have come across as compared to windows. Do I need to format it or will it be reformatted when we create partition for Bootable Master Record If I do need to format it, should I do it on PC or Mac Right now it is in Fat 32.

It contains some incription software that came with the USB. I too, got the 'couldn't unmount disk' message so I went to the drive on the left, right clicked and clicked 'unmount disk' then went ahead and erased it. To create bootable USB drive, I have a USB stick already formatted in Fat32. I went to utilities like the previous posters said and simply clicked 'erase.' No need to partition, don't understand why you would need to do all of that to do a simple format. On a PC, you simply right click and select 'format.' The reason I wanted to do this on the mac is because I have an 8gb usb flash drive that for some strange reason, when I deleted all the files it still showed only 1.5 gb available making it impossible to put any more than 1.5 gigs of new data on it. Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.Ħ. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.ĥ. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.Ĥ. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.ģ. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.Ģ.

What format usb stick for mac and pc