1. Format Sandisk Flash Drive Mac
2. Format Sandisk Flash Drive For Mac Iso
3. Format Sandisk Flash Drive For Mac Catalina

Connect your problematic SanDisk drive or removable device to your PC and follow next steps to format it with ease. Step 1: Launch EaseUS Partition Master, right-click the partition on your external hard drive/USB/SD card which you want to format and choose the 'Format' option. Choose the SanDisk USB flash drive and wipe it – all data information on the SanDisk USB flash drive will be permanently erased. Wipe free space of SanDisk USB flash drive. This option can help you permanently erase already deleted/formatted data on the SanDisk USB flash drive. It will not affect the existing data on the SanDisk USB flash. This video will show you how to format a USB flash drive on a mac running OSX Mavericks. I also show you how to securely format the drive if you have sensiti.

Does your Mac not recognize a USB drive? Is the USB flash drive not showing up on Mac after inserting it in the USB port? Find solutions here. Download EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac when you want to recover data from a USB drive not recognized.

Mac Won't Recognize USB, What Should You Do?

Commonly, when you insert a USB drive in the USB port on a Mac computer, the drive will soon appear on the desktop or hide in the Finder, letting you access, view, and manage data on it. Did you come across the situation that no matter how many times you try to connect the USB drive with a Mac computer, the USB drive is not showing up anywhere? Why this time Mac won't recognize a connected USB you may wonder. Though not a usual thing, the issue of an external hard drive or flash drive not showing up on Mac happens sometimes. What should you do in this circumstance? What are the effective solutions to make your USB drive show up again?

This page basically covers all the possible fixes for USB not showing up on Mac, which also applies to the similar issues of other storage devices like an external hard drive not showing up on Mac, flash drive not showing up on Mac, SD card not showing up on Mac, etc. Take a quick glance at the main content and directly jump to the part you're most interested in.

10 Fixes for USB Not Showing Up on Mac

The reasons behind the problem of a USB device not showing up are various, including the USB port is not working, USB drive corruption, virus infection, macOS faulty, etc. So, to figure out the effective solutions for your own case, you need to take time to have some basic check, exclude the irrelevant issues, identify the potential risk, and finally solve it!

Fix 1. Change the USB-to-Mac connection way

Have you tried to restart your Mac once or twice? Before taking further measures, don't forget the most efficient way to tackle commonplace hardware glitches that arises from time to time. If this operating system restarting fails to solve the current problem, move on to check the physical connectivity issue step by step.

Step 1. Plug the USB drive out from the not working USB port and change to the other USB port. Try all the available USB ports on your Mac.

Step 2. Did you use a USB connection cable or a USB-C adapter? If yes, take the USB drive out, and directly plug it in the USB port.

Step 3. Is there the other Mac computer available to you? If yes, try to connect the USB drive to this computer. Is it showing up normally?

Step 4. For SD card owners, the common way to connect an SD card to a Mac needs a card reader. If changing the USB ports did not work, try to change a card reader for a new round of tests.

The four steps of troubleshooting a USB drive not showing up on Mac are very basic, however, quite helpful in most cases. Each step can help us exclude the issues of a bad/loose connection, a not working USB port, a lack of power, and other superficial phenomenons.

Fix 2. Change settings for Mac detecting an external hard disk on the desktop

Occasionally, your Mac has already recognized the USB flash drive but not shown it on the desktop. Thus, you should go to Finder > Preferences > General and make sure the 'External disks' option is ticked. Then you'll see the USB flash drive showing up on Mac desktop.

Fix 3. Change settings for Mac recognize an external hard disk in the Finder

Finder is the other access for us to check a connected external drive on Mac. If your flash drive or external hard drive is not showing up there, go to Finder > Preferences > Sidebar, and under Locations, you need to tick the option 'External disks'. By selecting this option, we can make sure that the connected external USB hard drive or flash drive will normally show up in the Finder.

Fix 4. Check the USB drive in System Information

When you cannot find the USB drive on the desktop or in the Finder, try to look for it in the System Information section, which is usually a hidden place for average Mac users.

Step 1. Go to Applications > Utilities > System Information.

Step 2. Check if the system detects the USB drive. Click 'USB' on the left panel, and you can also check the USB flash drive information.

Fix 5. Reset USB ports on Mac to detect a USB drive

Step 1. Restart Mac computer, press the Command +Option+P+R keys until the Apple logo appears.

Step 2. Press Command+Option+Esc keys to close all applications that are not responding.

Step 3. Plug the USB which is not showing up to your Mac computer. If it doesn't show up, click Apple icon and select 'Sleep'.

Step 4. Wake up the computer after a few seconds by pressing any key.

Step 5. Shut down the Mac, unplug the power cord, reattach it after 15 seconds.

If this doesn't work, we should suspect the corruption issue at this moment. Don't give up and try to do some repair by yourself.

Fix 6. Repair USB flash drive with First Aid if it doesn't show up

Step 1. Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.

1. Step 2. Select USB flash drive on the left panel of Disk Utility, and click 'First Aid' at the top toolbar and click 'Run'. Disk Utility will repair any errors on the drive automatically.

Step 3. Select the USB drive and click 'Unmount' at the top toolbar, unplug the USB and plug it back in 10-15 seconds.

Fix 7. Check and fix errors in a not recognized USB with Terminal

Step 1. Open Terminal in Utilities, type:diskutil list and press Return.

Step 2. Find the disk number of your USB flash drive, type: diskutil info disk2 and press Return. (Replace 2 with the disk number of your USB flash drive.)

Step 3. Type: diskutil eject disk 2 and press Return.

Step 4. Type: diskutil list and press Return.When the USB disappear from the Terminal list, close the window.

Step 5. Close Terminal and open Console to inspect your drive errors.

Step 6. Click 'Errors and Faults' to check if there are any errors.

Step 7. Reconnect your USB flash drive back to Mac, if no error shows up, your USB flash drive is safe.

Fix 8. Save data and reformat the not showing USB drive

Disk reformatting basically solves many hard drive issues, including the not showing up USB, particularly the time when you are able to see the USB icon but files are not showing. USB drive showing empty makes no sense, so you have to reformat the disk and make it usable again.

Note that reformatting will erase data. As long as the data matters, you need to follow the standard procedure to ensure zero data loss. [1] Download EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac, the professional Mac data recovery software, to perform a full USB drive data recovery. [2] Reformat the USB drive in Disk Utility.

To format the USB drive in Disk Utility:

Step 1. Go to Utilities and open Disk Utility.

Step 2. Select the not showing up USB flash drive in the Disk Utility sidebar.

Step 3. Click Erase on the top.

Step 4. Finish the necessary information (name, format, and scheme) to format the USB flash drive.

Fix 9. Update your macOS and firmware

Did your Mac's OS keep updating all the time? Chances are that your Mac won't recognize a USB drive, especially after a macOS update. This time, take a close look at the settings whether your Mac is up-to-date. Equally, firmware updates address a variety of hardware issues and the functionality of the USB ports could well be one of them. So, keep your software and firmware up to date will likely make the USB drive show up as normal again.

Fix 10. Send the USB drive to a repair center

Nowadays even the branded USB flash drives are not expensive. If you've tried all the suggested troubleshooting methods, the USB drive is still not showing up on Mac, you have to accept the truth that it's severely damaged and beyond your ability to repair it.

Mac won't recognize a badly damaged flash drive or external hard drive since there is no way to show it up, even temporarily, which makes the data recovery difficult. The last chance for you to rescue data is to send the broken USB drive to a specialized data recovery service center nearby, and let the professionals try their best. You need to prepare for the manual data recovery cost, which is noticeably higher than the software data recovery. Hence, always try the cost-effective plan of using EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to scan the USB drive for the first attempt.

Step 1. Correctly connect your USB flash drive to your Mac. Launch EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac. Start selecting the flash drive and click 'Scan' to let the software search lost files on it.

Step 2. After a quick scan and deep scan, all files will be presented in the left panel in the scan results.

Step 3. Select files you want to recover and click the 'Recover Now' button. Don't save the recoverable files to the USB drive itself in case of data overwriting.

Many users are looking for tools like 'HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool for Mac', 'Sandisk USB Format Tool Mac', 'Kingston USB Format Tool Mac', 'Lexar usb format tool mac', 'sd card format tool mac' or 'usb disk storage format tool mac' hoping that there are this kind of tools that could be used on Mac for formatting their hard drive or usb flash drive on MAC OS X, or sometimes you are searching for a bootable format tool on mac just as what HP Format Tool could perform the trick.

Some users may also want to erase the privacy files on their device by getting it formatted, is formatting true erasing on MAC? Could formatted files be retrieved? We will explain all this in this content.

Note: before any formatting or erasing the disk/pen drive, we would recommend you backup your data on your media that you want to format onto another device to avoid unintentionally data loss. We would not expect this happen that you accidentally reformatted your disk/usb stick and then later found out you had just lost some important files.

Also read: 5 best free backup software, or how to repair damaged usb drive on MAC

Table of Content

1. HOT FAQs

8 MAC Formatters for USB/SD/HDD

Here is a list of disk or usb formatting tools for mac or ways of formatting disk/usb flash on MAC to get it done.

Tool 1 - Disk Utility provided by Mac OS, the best free tool to format device

Disk Utility - the best free mac format and erase tool that is provided by Apple Inc. for users to manage digital devices not only the internal media but also external drives like hard disk, usb flash and more.

Note: Erasing and formatting with Disk Utility would delete files on devices, the deleted files could be no longer accessible without some professional data recovery tools, which usually cost around $60-100.

Format Sandisk Flash Drive Mac

How to format/erase usb disk or memory card on MAC using Disk Utility

Here are the steps that you may follow to get your device formatted/erased.

• Get your device connected to MAC, and backup your data to somewhere else at first as the preparetion.
• Open Disk Utility, which can be found in Applications -> Utility
• View -> Show all devices
• Select the one you want to erase/format, and then click the Erase button. (The same function that is to perform the function of 'Format')
  Open Disk Utility
• Select a file system for it (if you want to format it fat32, select FAT. Exfat would be recommended since it is more powerful that fat32, later the difference would be explained)
  Choose a file system to format
• Confirm Erase
  Confirm erase to get it formatted/erased

See the video guide here.

Pros: - More than just a format tool on MAC

1. It is able to format a disk or usb flash to be hfs+, fat, EXFAT and more. (FAT VS FAT32 VS NTFS will be explained in the following parts)
2. It provides repairing functions to repair your storage device if it became damaged - that stars itself among the rest tools.
3. It is free of charge

Cons

1. It does not provide NTFS file system while formatting.
2. It is not truely data erasing since formatted/erased files could still be restored by other paid mac data recovery tools

File System Difference HFS+ VS FAT VS VS FAT32 VS EXFAT VS NTFS (Which one to use?)

Note: NTFS file system is not provided in Mac erasing/formatting inside of Disk Utility. If you want your device to be NTFS, you need to try other format tools or a Windows PC to get it formatted. Only by formatting could its file system be changed.

Which file system would you suggest for my device while formatting/erasing?->> EXFAT, which both works on MAC and Windows 10 compatible with no limit in file size and file storage size, volume size and you don't have to download other tools to get it formatted but just with the power of Disk Utility.

What if I want to use NTFS as my device file system, which tool shall I use to get it changed? Try some other mac format tools instead of Disk Utility. (We would tell you later in another article.)

How to tell which file system does my digital device apply?

Mac machines: right click your device in Mac -> Get Info -> General -> Format, and see what it shows, if it says 'MS-DOS FAT32', it means your drive is in fat32 file system, which is compatible with both Mac and Windows.

Windows PCs: You may get your device connected to Windows, and then right click it -> Property ->General, and you will see a photo that shows the information on file system.

File system is FAT32

Note: if your device is damaged and shows RAW FILESYSTEM, you may follow this guide to get it repaired: How to repair drive raw file system

Damaged media raw file system

You may also want to read: how to change raw file system to ntfs; how to convert raw file system to fat32

Tool 2 - WD Drive Utilities, formerly WD Quick Formatter by Western Digital Corporation (Freeware)

WD Quick Formatter is able to reformat any hard drive (not limited to WD Hard drives) to hfs+ or exfat file system and data on the drive would also be erased while changing its file system. No chance for a recovery unless with some special data recovery utility.

WD Drive Utilities formerly WD Quick Formatter

WD Drive Utilities software allows you to configure, manage, and diagnose your WD drive. With WD Drive Utilities, you can

• Run drive diagnostics
• Manage RAID configuration (For RAID supported models)
• Erase and format drive
• Set drive sleep timer (on supported drives)
• Register drive

(Information provided by WD)

You may download it here https://downloads.wdc.com/wdapp/WD_Utilities_Standalone_Installer_Mac_2_1_1_119.zip

If the above link expired, go to this page and get a download. https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?lang=en

Tool 3 - Freecome Hard Drive Formatter or also called FHD Formatter for MAC by Freecome Technologies (Freeware)

This freeware is able to format digital device to be hfs+, fat32 as options while choosing a file system to format/erase.

It is called Freecom Mobile Drive CLS FHD Formatter Utility 1.15 or FHDFormatter for Mac.

Download sites: we checked the websites and only found the download is available on softpedia and softinformer. See the download link here

Bottomline: we would recommend you stay with the first two freeware Disk Utility or WD Disk Utility.

Tool 4 - SD Memory Card Formatter for Mac - free

SD Memory Card Formatter for Mac is introduced by SDCard.org as a external device storage formatter that is able to format usb flash, memory card on MAC for free. See details and download url at this page

Download url: https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/eula_mac/index.html

Tool 5 - BitRaser, formerly named Stellar Disk Wipe by Stellar Information Technology(30 days free trial, Paid utility)

This one is useful that could erase confidential information on your devices. It has both Mac edition and Windows edition. And admin console, network erasure is still available as enterprise solution offered by Stellar. Highly recommended paid tool.

BitRaser

File eraser and Drive Eraser for different users need. Mobile eraser available too.

Tool 6 - AweEraser by Magoshare (Paid utility)

Tool 7 - Super Eraser by DoYourData (Paid utility)

Tool for erasing data on digital device on MAC. The erased/formatted files could not be restored. It needs a pay.

Free alternative of DOYOURDATA Super Eraser Mac - Mac Disk Utility

Tool 8 - MacClean360 by DoYourData (Paid utility)

It is a Mac cleaning tool that could clean files on Mac for digital devices. You may use the first Tool 1 Mac Disk Utility or WD Disk Utility as free alternative instead of this paid tool.

Verdict

Mac Disk Utility and WD Disk Utility is highly recommended for no matter formatting a device or erasing a device, or repairing device errors.

If you want to erase files or erase drive permanently without any chance of recovery, try the Tool 3 - BitRaser provided by Stellar Information on Mac, if you don't mind erasing the device on Windows, freeware IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free could erase files/drive permanently.

Format Sandisk Flash Drive For Mac Iso

Also read: 4 free tools to delete files or erase drive permanently on Windows

How to format usb flash or disk fat32 on Mac

Format Sandisk Flash Drive For Mac Catalina

Since Mac Disk Utility provides the formatting file system fat, exfat, you may want to know what's the difference between fat and fat32, or exfat?

See this is a photo that shows what's available when formatting the media in Disk Utility.

Choose a file system to format

More mac fat32 format tools? See how to format sd/usb fat32 on mac

1. Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2. Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)
3. Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
4. Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted)
5. MS-DOS(FAT) ----This is fat32, what you need
6. ExFat - recommended since it both works on Mac and Windows OS and it has no limit in file size and partition size.

Mac Disk Utility already provides an option when choosing a file system - MS-DOS(fat), WHICH IS FAT32 WHAT YOU WANT.

Note: Mac OS (FAT) is compatible with both Windows PC and Mac platforms, however, there's a limit to trasnferring files over 4GB.

The Answer - choose MS-DOS(FAT) ----This is fat32, what you need. However we would suggest you use EXFAT.

Formatting VS Erasing (Is formatting or erasing permanent data deleting?)

Formatting, is to make a media a new place for data storage that you may change its file system while you format it. Formatted drive data would be marked as available for new data to take its space.

There are three levels of formatting

1. quick format (no disk error checking and repairing)
2. full format (includes repairing bad blocks)
3. low-level format (it could only be performed by professional low level format tool, which is usually shorten the life of device)

Erasing, is to remove information on your device, which is more simplier than formatting, however it is not true wiping out all the information since erased files could be restored with help of free data recovery software.

Well, the truth is data could also be destoryed if you continue using your device after the formatting or the erasing and saved a huge number of files. If no data was saved to formatted/erased media, data could still be restored with professional tools.

How to erase data permanently on mac with freeware

Since erased files or erased media could still be recovered in Mac Disk Utilities and WD Disk Utlities, you may want to query how to erase data permanently on Mac? Is there any freeware that could do the permanent deleting?

The answer: BitRaser is a 30 days free program for erasing files permanently on Mac, we failed to find other free tools for the permanent erasing at this time.

Option: Erase data permanently with freeware on Windows OS using freeware IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free that provides 'Wipe Partition' to get everything truely deleted and removed without a chance of recovery.

Also read: 4 free tools to delete files or erase drive permanently on Windows

HP USB DISK Storage Format Tool for Mac Download

Is there HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool Mac available? Can I use HP USB Format Tool on Mac?

So far as we know that the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool, also called HP USB Format Uility by users is only for Windows OS for example Windows 10/8.1/7/Vista/XP and there was no news coming from the developer that a MAC edition would be released.

HP USB Disk Format Tool is provided by HP for disk formatting and making a bootable usb, however this program only provides Windows editions which is compatible with Windows 10, 8.1, 7, Vista, and XP.

The Answer: There is no mac edition of HP USB Format Tool, however here are some free solutions if you want to use it on MAC.

Formatting in HP USB Disk Format Tool, could be replaced by Disk Utility in Mac that you may save downloading HP USB Format Tool for Mac.

Creating bootable usb in HP USB Disk Format Tool, could be replaced by a bootable MacOS high sierra usb install drive, see the following video

Another option: see how to create a bootable installer for MacOS on https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

Also read: HP USB Format Tool Review and Error Fixing

Last updated on June 17, 2020

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