Remember that once you’ve formatted your hard drive, it will get wiped so you’ll need to backup the content on your external drive. The negatives of using Fat is that it can’t contain files bigger than 4GB. The good thing about changing the format to FAT is that it works with all Macs and PCs, plus it uses less memory and it works faster. Let’s get started… Format Using MS-DOS FAT Remember that everything gets wiped off your hard drive when you format it, so you’ll need to back it up before you follow the steps down below. This is extremely handy if you use a Mac and Windows operating system because you’ll be able to cross between both platforms and use your USB on anyone.
When you do format a hard drive, you’ll be able to access your data, media and files across any operating system.
Without formatting the drive, you won’t be able to use your hard drive across different operating systems. You can format an external hard drive or USB so that it’s compatible for both your Mac and your Windows PC.
