Free and Easy Ways to Format USB for PS4 in Windows 10, 8 , 7

Make USB visible in the PS4

 

My friend prepared a 2 T USB flash drive to store games on PS4, but when we connected the USB to the PS4, the USB is not visible in the PS4. What is going on? We don’t know how to get PS4 to recognize USB? Can someone help us? Any answer will be greatly appreciated.”

 

Over view of PS4

PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home game console launched by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is the fourth-generation game console of the PlayStation game console series. With the advent of PS4, this game console has also been favored by many game lovers.

As a PS4 player, USB flash drive are also indispensable tool. Many users use USB for the following reasons:

☞ Save data for PS4.

☞ System upgrade for PS4.

☞ File transfer for PS4.

But many users may encounter that PS4 fail to recognize USB when connecting USB to PS4, this is because PS4 only supports FAT32 and exFAT. When users use other file system (most USB devices bought in the market are NTFS), PS4 cannot recognize them.

So we only need to format the USB as FAT32 or exFAT. So what is the difference between FAT32 and exFAT? Which one should I choose? FAT32 supports up to 32G partitions, and a single file cannot exceed 4G, but it has better compatibility. exFAT supports a single file larger than 4G, but its compatibility is poor. So please choose one according to your actual needs.

Two Ways to format USB for PS4 in Windows 10/8/7

After reading previous paragraph, you might think about how to format USB for PS4 save data and how to format USB for PS4 system update? Don’t worry, two free format USB for PS4 methods will be provided in this paragraph. One is Windows built-in tool Disk Management, and the other is third-party software AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard.

│Method 1. format USB for PS4 via Disk Management

Step 1. Right-click “This PC” on the desktop and select “Manage”.

Step 2. Select “Disk Management” from the left menu.

Step 3. Right-click the USB you want to format, and then click “Format”.

Step 4. You can choose FAT32 as the file system here and click “OK”.

Notes:
1. Disk management cannot format a USB larger than 32 GB to FAT32.
2. Disk Management only supports formatting exFAT on removable disk.
3. Sometimes, the option to format the file system as exFAT does not appear in Disk Management.

│Method 2. format USB for PS4 with third-party utility

Usually the USB devices you prepare are larger than 32G, so Disk Management cannot format partition larger than 32GB to FAT32.  But fortunately, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard makes it all easy. It is a professional and free disk management software, safe and non-virus, and can bring you a good experience.

It breaks the limitations of Disk Management, and can format USB devices of any size to FAT32, can also format local or removable disk to exFAT.

In addition, clone PS4/PS5 HDD to SSD, convert data disk between MBR and GPT partition styles, migrate OS to SSD/HDD and other functions are also worth trying. Below I will show you the detailed steps.

PS.: This method will delete all data on the USB, if the USB is brand-new, please ignore it. If there is important data on the USB, please back it up in advance.

Step 1. After downloading, install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, right-click on the USB, and select “Format Partition”.

Step 2. In this small window, you can format the USB to FAT32 or exFAT file system. And click “OK”.

Step 3. You can see here that partition F has been formatted as FAT32 file system. Don't forget to click “Apply” to generate the operation.

Did you see it? It only takes three steps to use AOMEI Partition Assistant to format USB for PS4/PS5. But it should be noted here that Format Partition can format the USB to any file system, but this will delete all the data on the USB. If you only need to convert the USB from NTFS to FAT32, then you can use NTFS to FAT32 Converter.

Steps to Convert USB from NTFS to FAT32 without data loss:

 In the menu on the left side of the AOMEI Partition Assistant main interface, click “Convert” in the top toolbar, and choose “Convert to NTFS/FAT32”. Then follow the prompts to proceed.

│Method 3. Format USB for PS4 on Mac

The above two methods are to teach you how to format USB for PS4 in Windows OS. Next, I will show you how to format USB for PS4 on Mac.

Step 1. Connect the USB to the macOS computer.

Step 2. Go to Applications> Utilities> Double-click and open Disk Utility.

Step 3. Select the USB you want to format, and then click the Erase button.

Step 4. Select MS-DOS(FAT) in the format.

Step 5. Click the "Erase" button. Depending on the size of the USB drive, the operation may take some time.

Bottom line

This is the whole process of format USB for PS4, including on Windows and Mac. If you haven't tried AOMEI Partition Assistant, I suggest you use it. And if the partition in your USB is lost, then you can also use AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional to recover the lost partition and the data on the partition.