If your USB drive has a physical switch that can enable or disable write protection, you need to check it. If this is the case, you will simply need to disable the switch to start formatting the USB drive.
To configure a USB drive on a Mac, follow these steps:
- Connect the USB to your Mac computer.
- Open the "Disk Utility" application.
- Choose the USB drive you want to format.
- Click on the "Erase" button to choose the format (MS-DOS (FAT) or exFAT).
- The USB drive can now be used on both Mac and Windows devices.
If you want to format a USB drive and only work with Windows devices, the NTFS format is the best option because you don’t have to worry about the size of the drive or the files you want to save.
To change the format of your USB drive, follow these steps:
- Click on "Disk Management."
- Right-click on the partition and choose "Format."
- In the window that opens, select the FAT32/NTFS file system and click "OK."
- Click "OK" after completing the formatting.
To remove write protection from a USB drive, follow these steps:
- Open File Explorer and choose the "This PC" folder (or the name of your computer) to display all the drive disks, including removable ones.
- Select the USB drive and right-click to find the "Format" option.
- Click on "Format" to remove the write protection.
Alternatively, you can remove write protection by following these steps:
- Search for the "regedit" program in the Start menu and open it.
- Check the "WriteProtect" key on the right side.
- Double-click on it and change the value from 1 to 0, indicating that the USB drive has no write protection.
To format a USB drive using Windows 10, follow these steps:
- Open "Computer Management" and then click on "Windows Administrative Tools."
- Click on "Storage" twice and then on "Disk Management."
- Right-click on the USB drive and click on "Format."
If the files you want to store are not larger than 4 GB, FAT32 is the best option for formatting USB drives. For formatting both internal and external hard drives, the NTFS file system is the best.
To convert a USB drive from exFAT to FAT32, follow these steps:
- Ensure that your memory stick or SD card is detected by your computer.
- Right-click on the SD card and select "Format" in the Windows Disk Management menu.
- Choose the FAT32 or NTFS file system.
To format a USB drive in FAT32, follow these steps:
- Right-click on the device icon and choose "Format" from the context menu.
- In the window that opens, choose "FAT32" from the File System dropdown menu.
To remove write protection, follow these steps:
- Access the Edit DWORD dialog box by double-clicking on Write Protection.
- Change the value from 1 to 0 in the Value Data text box.
- Select "Yes".
- Exit regedit.
For formatting both internal and external hard drives, the NTFS file system is the best option. It can store files up to 16 TB and supports memory partitions up to 256 TB.
To convert a USB drive to FAT32, follow these steps:
- Right-click on the USB drive and choose "Format Partition."
- Choose FAT32 as the partition file system in the popup window.
To format a 64 GB SD card to FAT32, follow these steps:
- Right-click on the partition of the 64 GB SD card and select "Format."
- In the "Format Partition" window, choose FAT32 as the file system.
- Click "OK."