If you need a USB drive that's widely compatible with different devices, you may want to format it to FAT32. Here's how to do so on Mac and PC.

If Windows won't format your USB drive to the FAT32 file system, remove the write protection or use CMD, PowerShell, or free software to do the same.

This guide show how to format a USB drive to FAT32 file system using File Explorer and Disk Management tool on a Windows 11/10 PC.

If you need to format a USB flash drive, here's how it's done on all three major operating systems.

If you are unsuccessful in formatting USB sticks using Windows on-board tools, you can alternatively use the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool.