This Mac 911 article is in response to a question submitted by Macworld reader Robin. Use Windows USB/DVD download tool in Parallels to create the new properly formatted bootable USB.
In Parallels, download and install Windows USB/DVD download tool. Install Parallels on my mac loading Windows from the USB I created in step 1. Select the drive in the left-hand sidebar.įrom the Scheme menu, select Master Boot Record.Ĭlick Erase and follow prompts to confirm. What ended working was: Follow the steps in Boot Camp to create the bootable USB. Launch Disk Utility (from Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility). While first ensuring you have a copy of any data on a drive you want to format as ExFAT, as formatting will erase the drive’s contents, follow these steps: Instead, pick ExFAT, its replacement (and still quite old), best used on drives of 32GB or larger capacity.
Designed for an earlier time, it can’t handle files larger than 4GB. If you’re both Mac users, swell with Mac and Windows in the mix, you might be tempted to pick FAT32 when formatting that thumb drive.īut FAT32 is distinctly out of date. But it still crops up whenever you’re trying to put files on a USB thumb drive to hand off to someone else. For example, you might want to do this if you use a flash drive to store data files you need to use on your Mac at home and when using a Windows-based computer. For those of us who rarely transfer files physically across devices, file-format capability may be a distant memory.
