It also picks up the appropriate file system (exFAT or FAT32) based on the SD card’s size. Using Mac Command Line. Type cmd + space to launch spotlight. Connect your card reader to your Mac and insert your SD card. To see the list of all the available storage, type diskutil list. You will now see all the storage in a list format. How To Format External Hard Drive FAT32 In Mac Disk Utility? In order to format the volume greyed out issue, you can use the CMD option. To do so, follow the below simple steps: Step 1: At first, type the cmd in a search box. Step 2: Make right-click.
- Fat32 Sd Card Formatter For Mac
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- Fat32 Formatter For Mac
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Summary :
Are you looking for a professional FAT32 formatter to format your USB flash drive, external hard drive, SD card to FAT32 for better compatibility? This post will show you some ways and you can try them according to your needs.
Quick Navigation :
Why Choose FAT32
What Is FAT32
When it comes to FAT32, you should know it refers to a version of the file allocation table (FAT) which is available since Windows 95 OSR 2 and Windows 98. It increases the number of bits used to address clusters and also reduces the size of each cluster. As a result, it can support larger disks (up to 2 terabytes) and better storage efficiency (less slack space).
FAT32 is an old file system, so many old operating systems including Win95, Win98, Win2000, Win2003, Win Vista and more support this file system.
What’s more, as for some old game consoles, FAT32 is available. When reading here, you know FAT32 has very good compatibility. Besides, USB drives adopt the FAT32 file system by default.
Why Format to FAT32
Generally speaking, this is mainly because of the better compatibility of FAT32, despite that it can not support files larger than 4GB file size for single files.
Let’s focus on a common issue for more information: What is the best format for a USB drive?
If you are using a USB drive but the partition is formatted to NTFS before, now you want to use your USB disk to connect to a game console PS3/PS4, Linux, or Mac OS X. In this case, you need to use a FAT32 formatter tool to change the file system to FAT32. Otherwise, PS4 can’t read USB flash drive or you are unable to write in Mac OS/Linux.
Moreover, there is another case showing the necessity of formatting a hard drive to FAT32. You want to connect your USB disk or Seagate/Western Digital external hard drive to a NAS but the NTFS permissions cause the NAS not to access the drive. Under this circumstance, the better solution is to adopt FAT32.
How to Change Your Drive to FAT32
In order to get the best compatibility of your drive, using FAT32 as the file system is a good choice. Then, it is likely that you are wondering: How do I format a USB drive to FAT32? How do I convert NTFS to FAT32?
As a matter of fact, these two problems are often asked by many users. Today, in this post, we will show you how to change your external drives, USB disk or SD card to FAT32 in two cases in Windows 10/8/7.
Case 1: Important Data Are Saved on Your Hard Drive
Usually, there are some important files stored on the USB drive, SD card, memory stick or external USB hard drive. When there is a need, it is a better solution to adopt a professional FAT32 formatter tool to convert NTFS to FAT32 because of the limits of Windows Disk Management. (We will show you some details later.)
The Best FAT32 Format Software - MiniTool Partition Wizard
MiniTool Partition Wizard, professional FAT32 Converter, is recommendable since it enables you to not only convert NTFS to FAT32 but also convert FAT32 to NTFS without any data loss. It is compatible with many OSes including versions of Windows 10/8/7 and Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016 depending on different editions.
Convert NTFS to FAT is a paid feature, so you should use MiniTool Partition Wizard Professional Edition or a more advanced edition to change your SD card, USB disk or external hard drive to FAT32.
Step 1: Launch this FAT32 format software and enter its main interface.
Step 2: Focus on your SD card, USB disk or external hard drive partition to choose Convert NTFS to FAT from the right-click menu. Alternatively, you can select partition and click this feature from Change Partition column.
Step 3: At last, hit the Apply button at the top-left corner to execute this FAT32 conversion formatting process.
With the help of this application, you can easily and effectively change your external hard drive, USB drive or SD card to FAT32 from NTFS, which won’t have any influence on the data of your hard drive.
Case 2: No Data Are Stored to Your Drive
Suppose that there are no important data stored on your hard drive, you can choose to directly format your disk to FAT32. Here we will show you four ways to format NTFS partition to FAT32 and just choose one according to your needs.
FAT32 Format USB/SD Card - MiniTool Partition Wizard
To convert USB disk/SD card/external hard drive from NTFS to FAT32, this professional partition manager can also be used as a dedicated FAT32 formatter to format SanDisk/Kingston USB drives, SD cards (SDHC/SDXC cards) to FAT32 effectively in Windows 10/8/7. This way, you can use the drive in between Mac OS, Windows and Linux freely. (Also works to format drives to other file systems.)
Before the FAT32 format USB flash operation, you can free download MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition and install this best FAT32 formatting application on your computer and have a try.
Here is how to format to FAT32:
Step 1: Run MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition to its clear main interface to start FAT32 format SD card/USB drive.
Step 2: Choose the target partition and click Format Partition under Partition Management in the left pane.
Step 3: Specify the partition label, file system and cluster size for your target partition. Here FAT32 should be chosen. After finishing these settings, go back to the main interface.
Step 4: At last, hit the Apply button to perform formatting operation with this FAT32 format software.
Built-in FAT32 Formatter – Windows Disk Manager
In Windows 10/8/7, there is a snap-in FAT32 formatter which is used often. Usually, when referring to Windows format, Windows Disk Management is a good choice due to its clear user interface and accessibility (built-in free tool).
With it, you can create/delete/format volume, change drive letter and path, extend/shrink volume and so on. How do you format a flash drive to FAT32 with this disk manager? Follow the guidance as follows:
- Press Win + R keys to open the Run window.
- Type msc to open Computer Management. Then, go to Disk Management.
- Choose the target partition of your removable disk or external hard drive that you want to format to FAT32 and click Format from the right-click menu.
- In the disk formatting interface, specify volume label, file system (FAT32) and allocation unit size. Perform a quick format is selected by default in Windows 10/8/7.
After clicking OK, a warning “Formatting this volume will erase all data on it. Back up any data you want to keep before formatting. Do you want to continue” appears. If no important data is saved on your disk, just ignore this warning. If you have some files on the target partition, please refer to case 1.
FAT32 Format Tool – Windows Explorer
In addition to the above two FAT32 formatters, you can also format a hard drive to FAT32 via Windows File Explorer.
- When right-clicking the target USB drive partition you want to format in Windows Explorer, there is an option Format, just click it.
- Custom file system (FAT32), allocation unit size, volume label, and quick format. Click Start to begin FAT32 format process.
Like that, your USB drives, SD cards or external hard drives will be formatted to FAT32 in Windows 10/8/7.
Optional FAT32 Formatter - Command Prompt
Now we will show you the last method that is to use Command Prompt. This way requires you to input some commands. How to format to FAT32? Do as the following:
1. Run diskpart by inputting diskpart in the search box and pressing the Enter key.
2. Then type the following commands in turn and end each command with Enter.
- list disk: all disks are listed here.
- select disk n: n should be the number of the disk you want to format to FAT32.
- list partition
- select partition n: n refers to the partition number.
- format fs=fat32 quick
Also, a very similar tool called Windows Powershell has the same feature. To use this tool:
1. From Windows Search bar, type 'Powershell'. From the search result, run Windows Powershell with admin privilege. (Or you can find it under Windows power user menu by pressing Win + X.)
2. Next, in the new bule window, execute the following commands:
- get-disk | get-partition
- format-volume -driveletter K -filesystem FAT32 -newfilesystemlabel TEST (*author says: the drive letter and file system label can be changed at your own situation)
- exit
Simply doing the above will bring you drives with FAT.
Which Is the Best FAT32 Format Utility?
In this part, we show you how to change a hard drive to FAT32 in two cases: important data exist or no important data are saved to your disk. Four FAT32 formatting tools for USB disk, SD card or external hard drive are introduced to you in detail.
So, when reading here, you probably are wondering: which tool is the best one?
Third party utility MiniTool Partition Wizard enables you to convert NTFS to FAT32 without losing data. Besides, this tool also supports formatting partition of which the volume size is larger than 32GB to FAT32, which breaks the limit of FAT32. Disk Manager and Windows Explorer cannot be used to format the drive larger than 32GB to FAT32.
By contrast, you get that MiniTool Partition Wizard is the best FAT32 formatting tool in Windows 10/8/7. If you have a need, just get its Professional Edition to convert to FAT32 from NTFS and download its Free Edition to format a large hard drive to FAT32.
Bottom Line
Now we come to the end of this post. Need to format your USB flash drive, SD card or external hard drive to FAT32 with this FAT32 formatting tool? Four FAT32 formatters are displayed. Just choose one to quickly format FAT32 in Windows 10/8/7.
By contrast, we highly recommend you to use MiniTool Partition Wizard to convert NTFS to FAT32 or format SD card, USB disk or external hard drive to FAT32 without any limit.
Suppose that you have some questions or suggestions to this post, please don’t hesitate to tell us by sending an email via [email protected] or leaving your comment in the following text box. Much appreciated.
FAT32 Formatter FAQ
- Run MiniTool Partition Wizard.
- Choose the USB disk, click Format Partition, and choose FAT32 as the file system.
- Click Apply to execute the operation.
Many users are looking for tools like 'HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool for Mac', 'Sandisk USB Format Tool Mac', 'Kingston USB Format Tool Mac', 'Lexar usb format tool mac', 'sd card format tool mac' or 'usb disk storage format tool mac' hoping that there are this kind of tools that could be used on Mac for formatting their hard drive or usb flash drive on MAC OS X, or sometimes you are searching for a bootable format tool on mac just as what HP Format Tool could perform the trick.
Some users may also want to erase the privacy files on their device by getting it formatted, is formatting true erasing on MAC? Could formatted files be retrieved? We will explain all this in this content.
Note: before any formatting or erasing the disk/pen drive, we would recommend you backup your data on your media that you want to format onto another device to avoid unintentionally data loss. We would not expect this happen that you accidentally reformatted your disk/usb stick and then later found out you had just lost some important files.
Fat32 Sd Card Formatter For Mac
Also read: 5 best free backup software, or how to repair damaged usb drive on MAC
Table of Content
- HOT FAQs
8 MAC Formatters for USB/SD/HDD
Here is a list of disk or usb formatting tools for mac or ways of formatting disk/usb flash on MAC to get it done.
Tool 1 - Disk Utility provided by Mac OS, the best free tool to format device
Disk Utility - the best free mac format and erase tool that is provided by Apple Inc. for users to manage digital devices not only the internal media but also external drives like hard disk, usb flash and more.
Note: Erasing and formatting with Disk Utility would delete files on devices, the deleted files could be no longer accessible without some professional data recovery tools, which usually cost around $60-100.
How to format/erase usb disk or memory card on MAC using Disk Utility
Here are the steps that you may follow to get your device formatted/erased.
- Get your device connected to MAC, and backup your data to somewhere else at first as the preparetion.
- Open Disk Utility, which can be found in Applications -> Utility
- View -> Show all devices
- Select the one you want to erase/format, and then click the Erase button. (The same function that is to perform the function of 'Format')
Open Disk Utility - Select a file system for it (if you want to format it fat32, select FAT. Exfat would be recommended since it is more powerful that fat32, later the difference would be explained)
Choose a file system to format - Confirm Erase
Confirm erase to get it formatted/erased
See the video guide here.
Pros: - More than just a format tool on MAC
- It is able to format a disk or usb flash to be hfs+, fat, EXFAT and more. (FAT VS FAT32 VS NTFS will be explained in the following parts)
- It provides repairing functions to repair your storage device if it became damaged - that stars itself among the rest tools.
- It is free of charge
Cons
- It does not provide NTFS file system while formatting.
- It is not truely data erasing since formatted/erased files could still be restored by other paid mac data recovery tools
File System Difference HFS+ VS FAT VS VS FAT32 VS EXFAT VS NTFS (Which one to use?)
| File System | Compatible with macOS? | Compatible with Windows? | Max. file size | Max. partition size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HFS+ | Yes | No | No limit | No limit |
| FAT32 | Yes | Yes | 4GB | 8GB |
| exFAT | Yes | Yes | No limit | No limit |
| NTFS | Partially(Not provided by Disk Utility in Mac when formatting) | Yes | No limit |
Note: NTFS file system is not provided in Mac erasing/formatting inside of Disk Utility. If you want your device to be NTFS, you need to try other format tools or a Windows PC to get it formatted. Only by formatting could its file system be changed.
Which file system would you suggest for my device while formatting/erasing?->> EXFAT, which both works on MAC and Windows 10 compatible with no limit in file size and file storage size, volume size and you don't have to download other tools to get it formatted but just with the power of Disk Utility.
What if I want to use NTFS as my device file system, which tool shall I use to get it changed? Try some other mac format tools instead of Disk Utility. (We would tell you later in another article.)
How to tell which file system does my digital device apply?
Mac machines: right click your device in Mac -> Get Info -> General -> Format, and see what it shows, if it says 'MS-DOS FAT32', it means your drive is in fat32 file system, which is compatible with both Mac and Windows.
Windows PCs: You may get your device connected to Windows, and then right click it -> Property ->General, and you will see a photo that shows the information on file system.
File system is FAT32
Note: if your device is damaged and shows RAW FILESYSTEM, you may follow this guide to get it repaired: How to repair drive raw file system
Damaged media raw file system
You may also want to read: how to change raw file system to ntfs; how to convert raw file system to fat32
Tool 2 - WD Drive Utilities, formerly WD Quick Formatter by Western Digital Corporation (Freeware)
WD Quick Formatter is able to reformat any hard drive (not limited to WD Hard drives) to hfs+ or exfat file system and data on the drive would also be erased while changing its file system. No chance for a recovery unless with some special data recovery utility.
WD Drive Utilities formerly WD Quick Formatter
WD Drive Utilities software allows you to configure, manage, and diagnose your WD drive. With WD Drive Utilities, you can
- Run drive diagnostics
- Manage RAID configuration (For RAID supported models)
- Erase and format drive
- Set drive sleep timer (on supported drives)
- Register drive
(Information provided by WD)
You may download it here https://downloads.wdc.com/wdapp/WD_Utilities_Standalone_Installer_Mac_2_1_1_119.zip
Download Fat32 Formatter For Mac
If the above link expired, go to this page and get a download. https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?lang=en
Tool 3 - Freecome Hard Drive Formatter or also called FHD Formatter for MAC by Freecome Technologies (Freeware)
This freeware is able to format digital device to be hfs+, fat32 as options while choosing a file system to format/erase.
It is called Freecom Mobile Drive CLS FHD Formatter Utility 1.15 or FHDFormatter for Mac.
Download sites: we checked the websites and only found the download is available on softpedia and softinformer. See the download link here
Bottomline: we would recommend you stay with the first two freeware Disk Utility or WD Disk Utility.
Tool 4 - SD Memory Card Formatter for Mac - free
Fat32 Formatter For Mac
SD Memory Card Formatter for Mac is introduced by SDCard.org as a external device storage formatter that is able to format usb flash, memory card on MAC for free. See details and download url at this page
Download url: https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/eula_mac/index.html
Tool 5 - BitRaser, formerly named Stellar Disk Wipe by Stellar Information Technology(30 days free trial, Paid utility)
This one is useful that could erase confidential information on your devices. It has both Mac edition and Windows edition. And admin console, network erasure is still available as enterprise solution offered by Stellar. Highly recommended paid tool.
BitRaser
File eraser and Drive Eraser for different users need. Mobile eraser available too.
Tool 6 - AweEraser by Magoshare (Paid utility)
Tool 7 - Super Eraser by DoYourData (Paid utility)
Tool for erasing data on digital device on MAC. The erased/formatted files could not be restored. It needs a pay.
Free alternative of DOYOURDATA Super Eraser Mac - Mac Disk Utility
Tool 8 - MacClean360 by DoYourData (Paid utility)
It is a Mac cleaning tool that could clean files on Mac for digital devices. You may use the first Tool 1 Mac Disk Utility or WD Disk Utility as free alternative instead of this paid tool.
Verdict
Mac Disk Utility and WD Disk Utility is highly recommended for no matter formatting a device or erasing a device, or repairing device errors.
If you want to erase files or erase drive permanently without any chance of recovery, try the Tool 3 - BitRaser provided by Stellar Information on Mac, if you don't mind erasing the device on Windows, freeware IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free could erase files/drive permanently.
Also read: 4 free tools to delete files or erase drive permanently on Windows
How to format usb flash or disk fat32 on Mac
Since Mac Disk Utility provides the formatting file system fat, exfat, you may want to know what's the difference between fat and fat32, or exfat?
See this is a photo that shows what's available when formatting the media in Disk Utility.
Choose a file system to format
Fat32 Formatter For Mac Download
More mac fat32 format tools? See how to format sd/usb fat32 on mac
- Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
- Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)
- Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
- Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted)
- MS-DOS(FAT) ----This is fat32, what you need
- ExFat - recommended since it both works on Mac and Windows OS and it has no limit in file size and partition size.
Mac Disk Utility already provides an option when choosing a file system - MS-DOS(fat), WHICH IS FAT32 WHAT YOU WANT.
Note: Mac OS (FAT) is compatible with both Windows PC and Mac platforms, however, there's a limit to trasnferring files over 4GB.
The Answer - choose MS-DOS(FAT) ----This is fat32, what you need. However we would suggest you use EXFAT.
Formatting VS Erasing (Is formatting or erasing permanent data deleting?)
Formatting, is to make a media a new place for data storage that you may change its file system while you format it. Formatted drive data would be marked as available for new data to take its space.
There are three levels of formatting
- quick format (no disk error checking and repairing)
- full format (includes repairing bad blocks)
- low-level format (it could only be performed by professional low level format tool, which is usually shorten the life of device)
Erasing, is to remove information on your device, which is more simplier than formatting, however it is not true wiping out all the information since erased files could be restored with help of free data recovery software.
Well, the truth is data could also be destoryed if you continue using your device after the formatting or the erasing and saved a huge number of files. If no data was saved to formatted/erased media, data could still be restored with professional tools.
How to erase data permanently on mac with freeware
Since erased files or erased media could still be recovered in Mac Disk Utilities and WD Disk Utlities, you may want to query how to erase data permanently on Mac? Is there any freeware that could do the permanent deleting?
The answer: BitRaser is a 30 days free program for erasing files permanently on Mac, we failed to find other free tools for the permanent erasing at this time.
Option: Erase data permanently with freeware on Windows OS using freeware IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free that provides 'Wipe Partition' to get everything truely deleted and removed without a chance of recovery.
Also read: 4 free tools to delete files or erase drive permanently on Windows
HP USB DISK Storage Format Tool for Mac Download
Is there HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool Mac available? Can I use HP USB Format Tool on Mac?
So far as we know that the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool, also called HP USB Format Uility by users is only for Windows OS for example Windows 10/8.1/7/Vista/XP and there was no news coming from the developer that a MAC edition would be released.
HP USB Disk Format Tool is provided by HP for disk formatting and making a bootable usb, however this program only provides Windows editions which is compatible with Windows 10, 8.1, 7, Vista, and XP.
The Answer: There is no mac edition of HP USB Format Tool, however here are some free solutions if you want to use it on MAC.
Formatting in HP USB Disk Format Tool, could be replaced by Disk Utility in Mac that you may save downloading HP USB Format Tool for Mac.
Creating bootable usb in HP USB Disk Format Tool, could be replaced by a bootable MacOS high sierra usb install drive, see the following video
Another option: see how to create a bootable installer for MacOS on https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
Also read: HP USB Format Tool Review and Error Fixing
Last updated on May 10, 2021
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