How do I format a usb drive on a PC that was formatted on a Mac?

Question

I have a SanDisk Cruser drive that was formatted for a Mac and now I want to use it for a PC (and I don't have access to the Mac. What can I do?

Bacon Bits · Answer 1 · 2011-04-24 02:57:40Z

Assuming Vista or 7 (think this works on XP, but I'm not sure) and that the disk is not showing up under My Computer at all:

Connect your disk.
Run cmd as an Administrator.
Run diskpart.exe. Use ? if you need help in this program.
list disk
Find the disk that corresponds to your USB disk. select disk n where n is the number of the disk. Confirm that you're using the right disk with detail disk.
clean (Warning: This command erases the disk's partition information)
create partition primary. No size is needed if you want to use the whole disk
active. Marks the partition as potentially bootable.
format fs=fat32 quick. You can choose NTFS instead of FAT32 if you want.
assign. Assigns the disk a drive letter.
exit to quit.

It worked! Is there a way to do that in the GUI? Is that the same as using "Disk Management"?
You can do a lot of it in Disk Management, but I'm used to diskpart now. Finding exactly what you have to click on to get the menu you want in Disk Management can be irritating, and I've found sometimes it doesn't display non-Windows formatted disks correctly. Diskpart just always seems to work.

Chris_K · Answer 2 · 2011-04-24 02:55:58Z

up vote 0 down vote

Plug it into the PC. When it shows up under "My Computer" right-click on it and choose Format.

answered Apr 24 '11 at 2:55

Chris_K
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	Tried that before I posted here and it does nothing. – tooshel Apr 24 '11 at 18:50
	I tried the "diskpart" advice from Bacon Bits and when I got to the "clean" command the format disk screen popped up and I got permission denied in diskpart. It was strange. But then the "windows format" failed anyway and I tried the "clean" again in diskpart and it worked. Right now it's formatting using diskpart. – tooshel Apr 24 '11 at 18:54

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