If you need to back up any information on the drive, first connect your drive to a computer that does recognize the drive and transfer the data to a new storage device. Choose 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' to use the default Mac file system format. Click the 'Format' drop-down menu and select the format you want to use. Select your hard drive from the list and click the 'Erase' tab. Restart 'Disk Utility' if you had to restart your computer to perform a repair and you still don't see your drive. You may need to restart your computer and follow the prompts to complete the repair.Ĭlick the 'Finder' icon in the Dock and look for your drive in the sidebar. If the operating system already mounted the drive, an 'Unmount' button displays instead.Ĭlick the 'First Aid' tab and select 'Repair Disk,' if available. Select your hard drive, optical drive or other attached drive in the sidebar. How to format/erase usb disk or memory card on MAC using Disk Utility Open Disk Utility Choose a file system to format Confirm erase to get it formatted/. Click 'Go' and select 'Utilities' from the drop-down list. The former option can help ensure that the USB drive is made fully compatible with your Mac, since most USB drives are preformatted for Windows computers by default. Select 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled),' or your preferred format type.

Click the background to bring up the Finder menu in the the top bar. Click on the dropdown menu next to 'Format.' 7.

Completely reformat usb drive mac