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Thumbdrive Help

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xfactor11391

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I have a kingston datatraveler 512mb. I have had it for a couple of months it it has been great. Yesterday when I tried to put some files on it, the status light is blinking on it but it is not showing up on the desktop or the little sidebar on a finder window. Is it broken?
Thanks
 
Try formatting this on a Windows machine and then see if it will mount on the Mac. If so, then you can either just use as is- so you can use it on a PC and Mac interchangeably, or you can reformat it on the mac once you get it mounted and use it solely on the Mac.

If that doesn't work, I'd try it on multiple machines, ... and if nothing there, then the drive may be pooched.
 
How do I reformat the thumbdrive on a PC. Is there any way to format it so I can use it on a PC and a mac? thanks
 
xfactor11391 said:
How do I reformat the thumbdrive on a PC. Is there any way to format it so I can use it on a PC and a mac? thanks
Click to expand...

Format it through Windows Explorer (once the drive shows up in My Computer, right click it and select Format).

DO NOT format it on a Mac - I did this with my 1 gig thumbdrive and it made it completely useless until I reformatted it on a PC. Unless your Mac is capable of formatting a drive with FAT (or possibly FAT32), don't even bother with it.

Formatting your drive with FAT or FAT32 wil make it usable by both Windows and Mac.

And, as a side note, if you use the drive on a Mac and then on a PC you'll see some files (.DSSTORE, if I remember correctly) you don't see on your Mac - they're safe to delete but really don't take up much room.

HTH!
 
I don't see why everyone keeps saying format thumbdrives through a PC. I've never done that and only formatted them on my Mac using Disk Utility. Just make sure you choose MS-DOS File System, (FAT variant) and they always work on both Macs and PCs without flaw I've found.

Also I see in 'Disk Utility' there is a Verify and Repair section, under 'First Aid'. You could give those a whirl and see if they help at all.
 
Disk utility

If i erase any thing off the thumbdrive it doesn't free up any space.
I cant figure out how to format it, where can i find this 'disk utility' 😕?
 
mount it on a windows machine if it's not working on your mac.

try rescuing as many files as possible.

> right click on the drive
> format
> name whatever (no periods or punctuations as this tends to confuse the machine)
> file system FAT or FAT32 because they are read and writeable by both PC's and Macs.
> wait........ and wait........ and wait.....
> try mounting on Mac.


if problem persists, it could just be broken.
 
j/k/Andy said:
You need to also empty the trash (before you remove the drive) free up the space.


wow - old thread
Click to expand...

So that's why I have the same issue. Everytime I delete things from my drive, it does not free up space in it, and I have to plug it into a PC to format it.

I'll try out this one... 😉
 
weird that it doesn't show up at all, it could be broken. Check it on other devices, PC, another mac, Ps3, whatever you can.


If it does turn out to work, you can format it through the mac, but for some reason, only by a specific way.





Normally, you would go to Disk Utility, and select the "Erase" tab, enter a volume name and select "MS Dos File System", but on small thumb drives, this option fails to work. What the mac does, is formats it as FAT16 instead of FAT32. I did this, and I believe it reduced my 2GB stick to maybe half a gig, or less. Not to mention it did not work on other devices.


So what you do is connect the thumb drive, open disk utility, and select the "Partition" tab. Select "Ms Dos File system", Enter a Volume name, and go to "options" and select "Master Boot Record" partition scheme. This should format it as FAT32. It worked for me, my only problem was it seemed to take a while considering it was just a 2GB drive.
 
i.shaun said:
Normally, you would go to Disk Utility, and select the "Erase" tab, enter a volume name and select "MS Dos File System", but on small thumb drives, this option fails to work. What the mac does, is formats it as FAT16 instead of FAT32. I did this, and I believe it reduced my 2GB stick to maybe half a gig, or less. Not to mention it did not work on other devices.


So what you do is connect the thumb drive, open disk utility, and select the "Partition" tab. Select "Ms Dos File system", Enter a Volume name, and go to "options" and select "Master Boot Record" partition scheme. This should format it as FAT32. It worked for me, my only problem was it seemed to take a while considering it was just a 2GB drive.
Click to expand...

I don't know what issues you're having there Shaun. I just formatted a USB Thumb Drive on my iMac tonight running Leopard using D.U. and it formatted it as Fat 32. Perfect.
 
i.shaun said:
weird that it doesn't show up at all, it could be broken. Check it on other devices, PC, another mac, Ps3, whatever you can.


If it does turn out to work, you can format it through the mac, but for some reason, only by a specific way.





Normally, you would go to Disk Utility, and select the "Erase" tab, enter a volume name and select "MS Dos File System", but on small thumb drives, this option fails to work. What the mac does, is formats it as FAT16 instead of FAT32. I did this, and I believe it reduced my 2GB stick to maybe half a gig, or less. Not to mention it did not work on other devices.


So what you do is connect the thumb drive, open disk utility, and select the "Partition" tab. Select "Ms Dos File system", Enter a Volume name, and go to "options" and select "Master Boot Record" partition scheme. This should format it as FAT32. It worked for me, my only problem was it seemed to take a while considering it was just a 2GB drive.
Click to expand...


Thanks so much, i.Shaun! This worked like a charm!
 
thats funny, i have sorta the same problem, but its not just with thumb drives. Ill stick whatever in an USB port and it wont recognize, then il pull it out and stick it in another port and it will work just fine.
 
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