pendrive formatting problem
- Thread starter napper
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Actually, fat32 or HFS+ is irrelevant in this particular case. He's connecting it to a separate PC which means he most likely doesn't have HFS+ drivers on that system.
His problem is that he doesn't have the proper partition scheme. Right now, it sounds like he has it initialized as a GUID partition scheme drive rather then as Master Boot Record - the big indicator is that small 200 meg utility partition that's created by formatting the drive using the GUID partition scheme.
When you formatted the thumb drive in Disk Utility, and you selected one partition, as mentioned before, it probably defaulted to GUID Partition Table - this method will create a small partition and a main partition just like you're seeing. If you go back into Disk Utility, and re-partition the drive to one partition, click the options button below where it displays the partitions and select Master Boot Record, then select Ok and apply. Once done formatting, it should show in the text below Partition Map Scheme: Master Boot Record.
You should then see it as a single large partition on the Windows based machines.
You will want it as MBR anyway as if you took that thumb drive to an XP machine it would be unuseable as XP doesn't support GUID by default.
His problem is that he doesn't have the proper partition scheme. Right now, it sounds like he has it initialized as a GUID partition scheme drive rather then as Master Boot Record - the big indicator is that small 200 meg utility partition that's created by formatting the drive using the GUID partition scheme.
When you formatted the thumb drive in Disk Utility, and you selected one partition, as mentioned before, it probably defaulted to GUID Partition Table - this method will create a small partition and a main partition just like you're seeing. If you go back into Disk Utility, and re-partition the drive to one partition, click the options button below where it displays the partitions and select Master Boot Record, then select Ok and apply. Once done formatting, it should show in the text below Partition Map Scheme: Master Boot Record.
You should then see it as a single large partition on the Windows based machines.
You will want it as MBR anyway as if you took that thumb drive to an XP machine it would be unuseable as XP doesn't support GUID by default.
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Am I mising something here? I've never needed to format any of our family's pen drives (512 mb to 4Gb) and they are used interchangeably between our 3 macs and two pcs.
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For some reason I have had the same problem as napper when I would have to format usb drives on my MBP with 10.5.8.
If I just have to now, I format my usb drives on a PC to work on both Mac and PC with no problems.
If I just have to now, I format my usb drives on a PC to work on both Mac and PC with no problems.
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Nethfel is right on target! I don't know how many posts I've replied to where the user formatted his\her flash drive incorrectly and wound up with that 200MB partition.
The problem is actually also a Windows thing... Windows will not "see" any partition beyond the first on a removable drive even though the Disk Manager shows the correct number of partitions.
Follow the directions Nethfel gave in his reply and you'll be OK.
Regards.
The problem is actually also a Windows thing... Windows will not "see" any partition beyond the first on a removable drive even though the Disk Manager shows the correct number of partitions.
Follow the directions Nethfel gave in his reply and you'll be OK.
Regards.
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