USB Formatting

[Pi Man]

Hi,

I recently got a 4GB USB, and after installing Ubuntu on it, and booting from it, it stopped working. I reformatted the disk as I normaly would have but the size of the USB was reduced. Many formats later (I tried it on both windows and mac, windows had less success) im lucky if i even get to mount it, though when I do the freshly formatted drive reports 3.80GB total (where it used to be 4.10 GB) where only 17MB is actually available. Another common thing, is that Disk Utility hangs on "Waiting for Disk to reappear" indefinitely.

Ive searched around without success, i would really like to know how to fix this.

Thanks,

OfficialPiAddict out.

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Exactly which format are you currently using for the USB stick? How are you connecting it to your Mac? What is the brand of the USB stick?

Have you tried Disc Utility ~> Verify/Repair Disc?

 

[Pi Man]

The USB Stick is currently in FAT32, Im plugging it into the USB slot on the side, Im not sure what brand, it just says Autodesk. And with the Disc Utility, yes that fails, it says: Disk Utility cant repair this disk, however i am pretty sure that it is not a hardware problem, as it hasnt really been bumped at all, I've been pretty careful with it.

Thanks for the quick response.

OfficialPiAddict out.

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Do you have any issues with that USB port with another peripheral attached?

With the USB stick plugged in, have a look in System Information:

Finder Menubar ~>  ~> About This Mac ~> More Info ~> System Report ~> USB (in the left column)

Click on your USB stick and see what it says about it there …

You might just need to erase & reformat it on another computer and then test it out on yours ...

 

[Pi Man]

The USB profile spits out the following:



Product ID:0x1234

Vendor ID:0xabcd

Version: 1.00

Serial Number:1309081550300503064012

Speed:Up to 480 Mb/sec

Manufacturer:General

Location ID:0xfd120000 / 4

Current Available (mA):500

Current Required (mA):100

Capacity:4.09 GB (4,089,446,400 bytes)

Removable Media:Yes

Detachable Drive:Yes

BSD Name:disk2

Partition Map Type:Unknown

S.M.A.R.T. status:Not Supported



I also tried reformatting the drive on another computer though i had less success... The windows formatting tool failed unless quick erase was disabled, and i still only had 17MB of 3.8GB free...

Thanks for the help

OfficialPiAddict out.

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Try this:

Instead of simply reformatting the partition, try creating a new partition map completely on the USB drive. In Disk Utility, click on the device itself (not the indented partition below the device listing), and click the "Partition" tab. Then, create a partition and set it to "Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)".

 

[Pi Man]

Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply. But when I try to repartition it, Disc Utility hangs on "Waiting for discs to reappear".

Thanks,

OfficialPiAddict.

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Try starting your Mac in Safe Boot and then see if Disc Utility sees the USB drive

- Be sure your Mac is shut down.
- Press the power button.
- Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold the Shift key. The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup tone, but not before the tone.
- Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple logo and the progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear).
​

Another thing you could try is to enable the viewing of invisible files to see what is eating up all that space in the USB stick. To enable hidden files/folders in finder windows:

Open the Utilities folder (Applications ~> Utilities) and launch Terminal.app
Copy and paste the following line in:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

Press return
Now hold ‘Alt’ on the keyboard and right click on the Finder icon
Click on 'Relaunch'
​

You should now be able to see any hidden files or folders on the USB stick.
When you're done, to disable the ShowAllFiles command, copy paste the following:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles NO
​

If the hidden files aren't showing, you may want to try switching YES/NO to TRUE/FALSE .. (this is case sensitive), i.e. defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

 

[Pi Man]

So im not sure if this is relevant, but im trying to erase the USB using
diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 USB /dev/disk2

and disk util reported Error: 5: POSIX reports: Input/output error
thanks.

OfficialPiAddict

 

[oldscribe]

Hi.

Sounds like there is corrupted data in the drive.

 

[Pi Man]

Hi,

is there any way to fix this?

Thanks so much for everyones help.

OfficialPiAddict

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

Sorry no new stick needed, but they are very inexpensive.