![]() ![]() Otherwise, you may need to consider one of the file formats discussed below. If you're transferring files from Macs to PCs, this won't be an issue however, transferring files from PCs to Macs won't be possible if your drive is formatted in "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)." If you will only be working with Macs and not PCs, this may not be an issue. The "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" option will have the highest degree of support for Mac OS X features, and there's no limit to the size of files you can put on the drive.ĭisadvantages: Windows-running PCs can read files from drives formatted this way, but they can't write to them (at least not without the same amount of work it takes to get OS X to write to NTFS-formatted drives). You can even set up an OS X startup drive if you have the right files, the know-how, and a big enough flash drive, which will allow you to boot your Mac off an external disk if something goes wrong with your built-in drive. It also includes support for features from OS X Lion, such as Versions. Mac OS Extended (Journaled) - This is the default file system format for Mac OS X drives.Īdvantages: Formatting your USB flash drive this way will give you full interoperability with Macs. I'll discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the other three formats below. Unless you have extraordinary needs, you can safely ignore two of them: Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) and Free Space. There are several possible file system formats you can use for a USB flash drive, and changing them in Disk Utility is as easy as selecting the number of partitions you want on the drive (usually just one), picking the format you want for the drive, and clicking "Apply." Note that this will erase all information on the drive, so make absolutely sure you've got copies of everything before moving forward.ĭisk Utility gives you five different choices for drive formats in OS X Lion. If the drive is listed as NTFS-formatted, you're going to need to format it to something else if you want full compatibility with Mac OS X. If the drive's format comes up as MS-DOS (FAT) or, less likely, ExFAT, you may be able to simply leave the drive as-is and not bother reformatting it. Your new drive should appear in the left-hand column, and clicking the "Partition" tab will bring up info on the drive which includes its current format. How do you tell which format your brand-new USB drive has? Hook it up to your Mac and launch the Disk Utility app, located in your Utilities folder (which is in Applications). If the drive comes formatted in NTFS, which is the default file system for Windows, you're going to want to re-format the drive because Mac OS X can't write files to NTFS-formatted volumes (at least not without a bunch of extra work that's beyond the scope of this article). The first format, FAT32, is fully compatible with Mac OS X, though with some drawbacks that we'll discuss later. I've used rEFIt in the past (pre-Lion) with great success on a triple boot.The overwhelming majority of USB flash drives you buy are going to come in one of two formats: FAT32 or NTFS. Use the command line utility bless to set the disk that should be used as default startup disk (see man bless for more information).Make sure to reenable Tuxera NTFS for Mac afterwards. Your volume will now be mounted with Apple’s read-only NTFS driver, and the “Startup Disk” preference pane will behave as usual. Disable Tuxera NTFS for Mac (using the preference pane), unmount your NTFS volume with Disk Utility and mount it again. ![]() Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.This brings up a boot menu where you can choose which volume to start your computer from. Hold down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).However, there are numerous alternative methods for booting into Windows: This is hard coded, and something that we cannot change. Why does all NTFS drives disappear from the “Startup Disk” preference pane after installing Tuxera NTFS for Mac?Īpple does not allow any volumes that are mounted with third party file system drivers to appear in the “Startup Disk” preference pane. ![]()
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