Resolved Thumb Drive with bizarre created and modified dates

[Alpha Centauri]

Hi all,

I've a Samsung Duo Plus 256GB that in all honousty hasn't been used that often or is very old. I did today however reformat in ExFat using Disk Utility and have taken a screenshot of Get Info:

1. Why are the created and modified dates from the 70's?

2. Under Sharing & Permissions it also displays: you have custom access!! No lock to change users, or read or write permissions.
this shows on my MBP M2 with Ventura, but also on a 2009 Catalina MBP.

The Samsung has had a workout recently porting some/ many files to the new M2 but noticed nothing amiss. I'm not even sure at which stage it actually showed those dates or permission problem. Custom Access..what does that even mean? Any takers?

 

[Analog Kid]

Unix time - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Looks like the clock wasn't set or the dates have been zeroed out.

 

[jdogg836]

Edit: Looks like I got beat to the punch.

January 1st, 1970 is the beginning of Unix Time. Look up Unix Epoch or birthdate. All FAT file systems store the date as an offset from its own "birthdate", which is 1-1-1980 and a negative offset would make it show just before that date.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

Unix time - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Looks like the clock wasn't set or the dates have been zeroed out.

On both the 2009 and 2023 MBP? Something I inadvertently done?

 

[Alpha Centauri]

Edit: Looks like I got beat to the punch.

January 1st, 1970 is the beginning of Unix Time. Look up Unix Epoch or birthdate. All FAT file systems store the date as an offset from its own "birthdate", which is 1-1-1980 and a negative offset would make it show just before that date.

Ok. But how can I fix this and why the custom permission on the thumbdrive?

 

[Analog Kid]

On both the 2009 and 2023 MBP? Something I inadvertently done?

I'd expect the bad dates to follow the drive, regardless of machine...

Ok. But how can I fix this and why the custom permission on the thumbdrive?

Not sure. It's not quite clear what went wrong in the reformat process... If there's nothing on it, try reformatting again. If you don't need to use it with Windows machines, try to format it APFS.

 

[jdogg836]

Taking everything that you said into account, I would say that something happened during your reformat. One thing I would take a look at is when opening Disk Utility, click view > show all devices to ensure you're truly getting the root of the USB drive. There's no telling what status it's in.

The bad dates are from the drive itself and will present on any machine you plug it into.

 

[Fishrrman]

I'd ignore the dates.
Also ignore the permissions.

Try the drive for storing and transferring files.
If it works, just use it.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I'd ignore the dates.
Also ignore the permissions.

Try the drive for storing and transferring files.
If it works, just use it.

It definitely works, and rather well. Yet, I was curious. I just had "a moment" as included it to transfer data from a patched 2009 MBP to a brand new one. Long as it's just the drive, it's ok.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

Taking everything that you said into account, I would say that something happened during your reformat. One thing I would take a look at is when opening Disk Utility, click view > show all devices to ensure you're truly getting the root of the USB drive. There's no telling what status it's in.

The bad dates are from the drive itself and will present on any machine you plug it into.

I usually (always) format from the root. Thinking back, I've seen this behaviour before on other thumb drives in the past. Cheers.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I'd expect the bad dates to follow the drive, regardless of machine...


Not sure. It's not quite clear what went wrong in the reformat process... If there's nothing on it, try reformatting again. If you don't need to use it with Windows machines, try to format it APFS.

Usually I do format in HFS+ but for foreseen compatibility at a printing shop it was ExFat this time. I'll get the date off and try APFS, see for kicks what it shows. Cheers.