Formatting pendrive in os x

I tried to format my pen in os x today. i launched disk utility and selected the pen and clicked erase using ms dos format. this is for using it on both windows and os x. i removed it and placed it in my pc. it told me i needed to format it to be able to use it in windows. i formatted it and now i can see only 200mb in it on windows . Only 200mb!!!!i connected it back to my mac and saw 2 drives. one with NONAME and one with my name. what am i doing wrong here guys? I thought i was doing the normal formatting procedure.

 

never had Windows not be able to read a drive I had formatted in FAT... are you sure you really chose MSDOS format? Have you tried starting over and blanking the whole thing?

 

yeah, i did choose msdos. i tried quick erase and also tried the 2nd one(replacing with zeros), but i'm still getting this problem...dunno why.

 

btw, i have split it into 2 partitions in os x and now when i format it under windows, i get 7.58gb only. why? i had chosen msdos as default file type.

oh and i had tried the erase free space option.it worked but i decided to erase it all once again. is there something i might have done wrong?

 

It worked!!!I had forgot to partition it when i erased it...what a waste of time. Im sorry..

 

The only stupid question is the one that goes unasked.

 

also make sure you choose the correct partition table format, I had the same problem as it was defaulting to guid even though I was formating in FAT. Result was a usb disk not being readable on a pc.
a

 

Thanks, i did the same mistake before realising it was the mac journaled format by default. I had to select fat before getting it to work. I thought i had managed to brick my pen drive.

 

Since this is about formatting portable drives, does anyone know how to make a bootable USB in OSX?

 

I created a bootable USB flash with the OSX Snow Leopard install disk on it.

I primarily did this because I've since removed my superdrive and I'm better with keeping my flash drives around than a bulky CD.

Anyways, I can't remember how I did it But good new's is that I do remember where I went to learn how to do it. Search for "stevesmacfix" in youtube. He's got this and several other very handy "how to" videos.

Ben


*DOH! I see that all of steve's youtube videos are no longer available. Which sucks because they were great tutorials. Sorry, that doesn't help you any.

 

You can put BSD on a pin drive but Apple restrict it use to Apple hardware only. I do not think a Pin drive is apple hardware.