Re: Reformat USB Flash Drive?

In article <20050924135414412+1200@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Roger
Johnstone <rojaws@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> In <siegman-8324BF.15434523092005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> AES wrote:
> > Is there a way to re-format or "erase and re-initialize" a keychain-
> > type flash drive gadget.
> >
> > I recently copied an Adobe Acrobat-prepared PDF document from my iBook
> > G4 running OS 10.3.9 onto a Sonnet Piccolo 32 MB USB flash drive, and
> > learned that a colleague was not able to mount the flash drive on his
> > Windows PC machine. [Sorry, don't have specific details on the PC or
> > its OS.]
> >
> > I think I first acquired this flash drive some time ago, back in my
> > PowerBook G3 OS 9.2 days (maybe even earlier). Is there a
> > reformatting or something similar I should apply to it, to make data
> > written to it by an OS X machine readable on current Windows PCs?
>
> Run Disk Utility. It's in the folder /Applications/Utilities.
> Plug in your drive and it should appear in the window pane on the left
> of the main window.
> There should be an icon for the disk itself, plus under it icons for
> each of the volumes stored on it. Unless you've partitioned the disk
> though there'll only be one volume.
> Select the disk icon (not the volume icon under it), then the Erase tab
> in the right pane. Select Volume Format: MS-DOS File System and then
> click the Erase button. This will of course delete everything on the
> drive.

I haven't tried it under Mac OS X, but under Mac OS 9 it's simply a
matter of clicking on the drive's icon in the Finder and formatting it
there.

There is one bug though: if you've got FileSharing turned on you can't
reformat the drive (whether it's a keyring / thumb drive or a CD-RW
disc), so you have to turn that off first, reformat the disk, and then
turn it back on - in that case it could be easier, or essential, to use
Disk Utility instead. :o\


Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)
.