Formatting Sticks
A Mac can generally read memory sticks or USB flash drives formatted on Windows using the NTFS or FAT32 file systems. Mac computers have built-in support for both NTFS and FAT32 file systems, which means that when you plug in a memory stick formatted on Windows into a Mac computer, the Mac operating system should be able to read the file system on the memory stick without any issues.
Memory sticks or USB flash drives formatted on a Mac using the default file system (HFS+) are NOT natively supported on Windows operating systems. This is because Windows does not have built-in support for the HFS+ file system.
Windows operating systems use the NTFS or FAT32 file systems, which are not compatible with HFS+. This means that when you plug in a memory stick formatted on a Mac into a Windows computer, the Windows operating system will not be able to read the file system on the memory stick and may prompt you to format the drive before using it.
To format a memory stick on a Mac that is readable on Windows you have to use the DISK UTILITY (you can search for this).
Click Erase then fill in the disk name and choose MS-DOS (FAT16) and hit the Erase button.
All existing files will be lost but the memory stick will be interchangable between Windows and Mac.
Note; There are some cases where a memory stick formatted on Windows may not work properly on a Mac. For example, if the memory stick is using a Windows-specific file system, such as exFAT or ReFS, the Mac may not be able to read the file system without additional software. In these cases, you may need to install third-party software, such as Paragon NTFS for Mac or Tuxera NTFS for Mac, to enable your Mac to read the Windows-specific file system on the memory stick.
Equally there are third-party software applications available that allow Windows to read and write to HFS+ formatted drives, such as Paragon HFS+ for Windows and MacDrive.
