Understanding Mac 101: Format Choices For USB Flash Drives
Learning to format a USB flash drive is not as hard as you might think. If you have a Mac, this is incredibly easy! Just follow the guidelines in this article and you should be able to format your drives. If you do not own a Mac, unfortunately you will need to find someone on the internet to help you.
You can purchase your own drives or you can use a third-party tool. There are a number of advantages and disadvantages with both methods. Purchasing external drives are considerably more expensive than using a software program. If you decide to use a software program, you will likely lose all data from previous use of the external drives. You will probably also incur some costs since some programs will require that you use adware or spyware to get them running.
If you have no computer to use to format the drives, you can choose to format the drives using the BIOS on your computer. Most often, the computer will prompt you to choose a drive when you power it on. Follow the instructions to choose the drive and then follow the procedure to format the drive.
Another option is to format the USB drive by using the command line option on the computer. This is an excellent option if you know how to use the drive and it is supported on most operating systems. It is also the least expensive option. You will need to have an operating system that supports the command line option such as Microsoft XP, Macintosh OS X, or Novell Netware.
The advantage of formatting the USB flash device is that you can use the existing data or partitioned drive to copy new data to the flash drive. For example, you could copy all of your photos from your digital camera to the USB flash drive. Or, you could choose to copy all of your documents from your Word document to the USB device. There are many other potential applications. However, it is important that you choose the appropriate application for your device. This is because not all applications will work with all devices.
You will find similar instructions to format other disks. However, the procedure for formatting USB drives is different. Because they use flash memory rather than paper, formatting the disk requires special equipment. To create a CD or DVD, you would need to use the disk burner on your computer. If you attempt to format the disks without using a burner, the device will only accept CD-R formats. You will be unable to create DVD-R or -W formats with the devices.
Of course, you can create the CD or DVD format on the go with the devices that support portable storage devices. However, you must have the right device. If you use your laptop, you can connect the device to your Mac desktop. When you want to use the diskettes, simply place the CD into the drive and follow any other instructions provided by the device’s manufacturer. In other words, even if you have never formatted a computer before, you should be able to follow the directions to format the drives and create the necessary disks.
Of course, once you have decided to use the software, you need to purchase the program. The Mac OS X version that you prefer will usually be sold as a disk or CD. However, some companies provide both the disk and the software. Once you have purchased the software, you will need to download the device driver software. You can find this free in the Apple website. Then, follow the instructions in the user guide to format the drives.
