May 5, 2017 - Not every flash drive out there can be used with a Mac computer right out of the box. Some flash drives have to be formatted first before you can.
One of the most useful devices of the computer age is the pen, or flash, drive. With the ability to hold a surprisingly large amount of data for its size, flash drives save time by allowing users to quickly transfer data between computers. Previously, the two computers had to be networked, or users had to revert to clunky methods, such as attaching a hard drive to the computer or burning the files onto a CD.
While flash drives are universal, some Mac computers are unable to read flash drives that have been formatted in a particular way, so learning how to properly format your pen drive is paramount. Select the drive in the left pane. In the Name field, type a name for the pen drive. Select the 'Erase' tab in Disk Utility, making sure the flash drive is selected. Choose the desired format that you want the pen drive to have. If you’re planning to use it with both a Mac and a PC, select 'MS-DOS (Fat),' which will allow it to be read by both Windows and Macintosh computers. If you’re planning only to use it for Macs, select 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled).'
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Click on the 'Erase' button. This will erase all the data on the pen drive, so back up any data you want to save before getting to this point. Eject the pen drive, either by dragging it into the trash or by using the eject button - the triangle icon - in the Finder window.
Why a flash drive? A bootable external or internal hard drive works well for desktop Macs but presents a cumbersome problem for notebook Macs. A flash drive is a simple, inexpensive, and portable emergency boot device that can handle OS X or the macOS. Heck, it can even have both operating systems installed, letting you use the emergency USB flash drive to boot any of the Mac's you may have. Even if you don’t use a notebook, you may want to have a bootable USB flash drive on hand. What You Will Need.