USB falsh drive not recognised

[Chirson]

Hi All,

My Macbook Pro early 2011 (OSX 10.8.3) does not recognize one of my USB flash drives, it is not shown on desktop nor in Disk Utility. Flash drive is USB 2.0 and works fine under Win7, it is formatted in FAT32. Both USB ports also work fine as I can use them with my other USB drives and devices (iphones, cameras, etc.). The only problem is with this specific USB flash drive. Is there a way to add a driver for this specific flash drive? How do you tackle a problem like this in OSX, I am clueless, and searching the net was not of much help either. Any suggestions how to solve this problem are welcomed.

Thanks.

 

[benwiggy]

Does the drive not work in both USB ports?

Is the drive listed in System Profile? (Apple menu > About This Mac > More Info > System Report > USB.)

If all else fails, try another flash drive.

 

[Chirson]

Hi benwiggy

Thanks for your reply, the flash drive doesn't work with both usb ports and it is not shown in the system profiler but then other usb drives are not shown either when they are connected. This is what I get from system profiler:


USB Hi-Speed Bus:

Host Controller Location: Built-in USB
Host Controller Driver: AppleUSBEHCI
PCI Device ID: 0x1c2d
PCI Revision ID: 0x0005
PCI Vendor ID: 0x8086
Bus Number: 0xfa

Hub:

Product ID: 0x2513
Vendor ID: 0x0424 (SMSC)
Version: b.b3
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Location ID: 0xfa100000 / 3
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 2

Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad:

Product ID: 0x0245
Vendor ID: 0x05ac (Apple Inc.)
Version: 1.08
Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Location ID: 0xfa120000 / 5
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 40

BRCM2070 Hub:

Product ID: 0x4500
Vendor ID: 0x0a5c (Broadcom Corp.)
Version: 1.00
Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Location ID: 0xfa110000 / 4
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 94

Bluetooth USB Host Controller:

Product ID: 0x821a
Vendor ID: 0x05ac (Apple Inc.)
Version: 0.41
Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Location ID: 0xfa113000 / 6
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 0

FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in):

Product ID: 0x8509
Vendor ID: 0x05ac (Apple Inc.)
Version: 5.16
Serial Number: CC2B2C0AR3DGFKL0
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Location ID: 0xfa200000 / 2
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 500

The only place where my USB drives are shown in system profiler is under Storage. Here is an example of USB drive that actually works:

4GB DRIVE:

Available: 4.19 GB (4,185,735,168 bytes)
Capacity: 4.19 GB (4,192,202,752 bytes)
Mount Point: /Volumes/4GB DRIVE
File System: MS-DOS FAT32
Writable: Yes
Ignore Ownership: Yes
BSD Name: disk1s1
Physical Drive:
Media Name: CHIPSBNK USB 2.0 Media
Protocol: USB
Internal: No
Partition Map Type: MBR (Master Boot Record)
S.M.A.R.T. Status: Not Supported


The drive in question is not shown in storage section when plugged in. It is not a problem to get another drive that works, I have several of them and I'll be fine It just bothers me that there is nothing I can do to solve this problem and it seems that both USB drive and laptop work fine but somehow they can't work together.

 

[stchman]

I have a flash drive that just will not work on my MBA, but works fine on my other computers.

 

[MrMacMack]

Try restarting your computer. If that doesn't work, then create a test user account and login to that to see if it shows up there.

 

[Chirson]

@MrMacMack

Done already, no show

 

[Drew017]

Hi All,

My Macbook Pro early 2011 (OSX 10.8.3) does not recognize one of my USB flash drives, it is not shown on desktop nor in Disk Utility. Flash drive is USB 2.0 and works fine under Win7, it is formatted in FAT32. Both USB ports also work fine as I can use them with my other USB drives and devices (iphones, cameras, etc.). The only problem is with this specific USB flash drive. Is there a way to add a driver for this specific flash drive? How do you tackle a problem like this in OSX, I am clueless, and searching the net was not of much help either. Any suggestions how to solve this problem are welcomed.

Thanks.

You don't need to install a driver for a flash drive. OS X should recognize it automatically. You can try erasing and reformatting your flash drive by plugging it in (even if you can't see it on your computer) and opening disk utility. Then you can click on the USB and erase and format the disk (probably as FAT if you need to use it with a PC as well) Just make sure you back it up first.

 

[dickguertin]

Apparently nobody has an answer for this problem. I have a Lexar USB 8Gb flash drive with MBR and MS-DOS (FAT32), and it works fine on Snow Leopard (10.6), but isn't recognized on Yosemite (10.10). The light on the drive flashes once, and that's it. I need the FAT32 format for use with Windows. My drive doesn't have "Owner enabled", if that matters.