Memory stick question

USB Pen Drives are a USB device and show up as an external storage device under Windows or Mac OS.

No need to format.

 

Yes no need to format each time, providing you start off with a stick formatted as FAT32. In Disk Utility, click on your memory stick, and click the Erase 'tab' at the top. Now where it says Volume Format: choose MS-DOS file system, and finally click the Erase button.

As the button suggests, click Erase with delete anything that is on that drive, so best save all your stuff off there first.

This tip doesn't just work with memory sticks - any external drive will do it! One thing I've discovered though is if you have a FAT32 drive, you cannot use spotlight comments.

 

USB drives need formatting just like anything else. Normally they come preformatted as FAT16 or FAT32 depending on the size of the drive so you don't usually need to format them at all.

If you reformat the drive as FAT16 (or FAT32 if it's over 2 gig) then it should work in PCs and Macs withtout a problem.

FAT shows up as MS-DOS filesystem in Disk Utility.