Do you need to use your pen drive or external drive with both Windows and Mac computers? Do you want to format the drive to a file system that is supported by both Windows and Mac computers? If yes, you are at the right place.
As you know, most PC users format their flash or external drives to the NTFS file system. Although the NTFS file system is popular among Windows users, macOS does not support writing to an NTFS drive. That is, if connected to a Mac, the Mac can open and copy files from the NTFS-formatted drive, but it cannot copy files to the NTFS drive or delete a file. Because of this limitation, the NTFS file system is not recommended for users who need to use their external drives with both Windows and Mac.
The exFAT, developed by Microsoft, is the ideal file system as both Windows and macOS support it out of the box. That is, both Windows and Mac computers can read and write to exFAT-formatted drives.
If you have a USB flash drive or external drive, you can consider formatting it to exFAT so that you can use it with both Windows and Mac without any limitations.
The following are the three easy ways to format an external drive with the exFAT file system.
Method 1 of 3
Format external drive to exFAT from File Explorer in Windows 11
Step 1: Connect the external drive that you want to format to exFAT to your Windows 11 PC, and back up any data to a safe place, as formatting the drive erases the data on it.
Step 2: Open File Explorer. In the left pane, click “This PC” to open it.
Step 3: Right-click the external drive and then click the Format option to bring up the Format dialog.
NOTE: Be sure to right-click the external drive that you want to format to exFAT. As you likely know, formatting a drive erases all data on it.
Step 4: Select exFAT from the File system drop-down menu, ensure that the ‘Quick Format’ checkbox is selected, and then click the Start button.
Step 5: When you get the confirmation dialog, click the OK button to erase all data on the drive and then format the drive with exFAT. A “Format Complete’ message should appear in a few seconds.
Method 2 of 3
Format the external drive with the exFAT file system from Disk Management in Windows 11
Step 1: Right-click the Windows logo icon on the taskbar, and then click the Disk Management option to open the same.
Step 2: In the Disk Management window, find the external drive that you want to format with exFAT.
Step 3: Right-click the external drive’s entry and then click the Format option.
Step 4: Upon getting the prompt, click the Yes button.
Step 5: Finally, select exFAT from the drop-down next to File System, ensure that the ‘Perform a quick format’ option is selected, and then click the OK button to format the drive with the exFAT system file.
Method 3 of 3
Use Command Prompt to format an external drive to exFAT in Windows 11
Step 1: Open Command Prompt as an administrator. To do this, search for Command Prompt in the Start menu or taskbar search field, right-click the Command Prompt entry in the search result, and then click the Run as administrator option.
Click the Yes button when you get the User Account Control prompt.
Step 2: In the Command Prompt window, type diskpart and then press the Enter key.
Step 3: Type list disk and then press the Enter key to see all drives connected to your Windows 11 PC.
Step 4: The previous command displays all connected drives, including external drives. Identify the external drive that you want to format to exFAT and note its corresponding number.
Step 5: Type select disk x (replace x with the number next to the disk in the previous command) and then hit the Enter key.
Step 6: Next, type clean and press Enter.
Step 7: Type create partition primary and then press the Enter key.
Step 8: Finally, type format fs=exFAT quick and then hit the Enter key to format the selected drive with the exFAT file system.
Once done, you may close the Command Prompt window.
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