"bad" flash drives, or corrupted?

[Steve Hope]

Hi guys, newbie here having a problem with SanDisk cruiser glide 3.0 32GB flash drives. I bought a 3 pack of these guys a while back ( 6 months +/- ). I was able to open them all on my MacBook Pro 13 (2015) and add vacation pics to all of them. Over the months my boss wanted to see the pics because we went on some interesting cruises, etc. All 3 flash drives were played back on the companies windows desktop, all three worked fine. Now when I plug any of the 3 into my mac ( either usb, does not matter which) my mac cannot "see" the drives, will not place them on the desktop. Cannot do a normal eject as Finder cannot see them, when removed I get the normal "did not eject properly" message. All 3 drives open no problem on our other windows computers here at my house but will not show on my mac anymore!!! Did I get a bad batch of drives? or is there something else going on? Please enlighten me, thank you all.

 

[TreeTreeTree]

Go to Finder>Preferences>General, and see if the items you want to show on your Desktop are checked.
Do the same in Finder>Preferences>Sidebar.

 

[Steve Hope]

Go to Finder>Preferences>General, and see if the items you want to show on your Desktop are checked.
Do the same in Finder>Preferences>Sidebar.

Thanks TTT, I did have those items checked. I wonder if Windows changed them to fat32 or ntfs files, not visible to mac? Would the windows computer be able to restore the original format? Thanks.

 

[TreeTreeTree]

If you change the format, you will lose the files.
Try un-checking and re-checking the boxes.
Try >Force Quit>Finder (at the bottom of the list) Finder will restart
Try the Disk Utility app, and see if they show up there.
If they do, try First Aid to see if anything improves.

 

[honestone]

Macs can read flash drives formatted at FAT32 (believe Macs refer to that as MS-DOS), ExFat, and NTFS. I actually have a SanDisk Cruzer Glide 32GB flash drive, and a SanDisk Cruzer Glide 64GB flash drive (along with a Lexar 256 gig Flash Drive and a Pny 64 GB Flash Drive), formatted as ExFat, and my macs read them fine. In fact, when I want to use the flash drives to watch moves and/or TV series on our Samsung 65" Smart TV, as long as I format the flash drive as either MS-DOS or ExFat, I can copy movies and/or TV series to the drive, I can plug it into any of the USB ports on the TV, and the drive and content are recognized. The SanDisk Cruzer Glide 64GB flash drive is now plugged into a USB port on the TV, and I have been watching some moves on it, along with a TV series.

When you first got the flash drives, did you reformat them at all? Typically they come formatted for Windows machines. Given that after you placed some pictures on all of them (I assume you did this on your Mac), then plugged them into a Windows machine, and they were read fine, I suspect they were initially formatted for Windows machines. When you used them on your Windows PC, as long as you did not reformat them, they should have remained as is.

Start up your Mac, and after it gets to the desktop, plug one of the drives into one of the USB ports. If it does not "mount" on the desktop, launch Disk Utility and see if it can "see" the drive. If so, and if you can afford to lose the information on it, have Disk Utility Erase and Format the drive.

 

[honestone]

One other thing, although it should not make much of a difference: what exact Mac OS are you running?

 

[Steve Hope]

Thanks, I have early 2015 machine (MacBook Pro 13 with retina display and am running High Sierra 10.13.3. I did as suggested and had disc ute open, it sees the drive as I named it and as MS-DOS (FAT32) but it is not seen on the desktop.
I never put critical stuff on a flash drive so yes these photos can be erased, I have copies on my external HD for storage.
///have Disk Utility Erase and Format the drive.///
What format should they be reformatted too? Thank you.

 

[honestone]

Glad Disk Utility was able to"see" the drive. To make sure it is not defective, first Erase and Format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), with the Scheme being GUID Partition Map. Then, quit Disk Utility, remove the drive from the USB post, then plug it back it. It should be able to mount on the desktop.

If you want to just use the Flash Drives on your Mac, then you are done. But if you also want to use them on a Windows PC also (while still being able to use them on your Mac), then let Disk Utility Erase and Format the device again, this time choosing the format as ExFat, and the Scheme being Master Boot Record. Again, you should still then be able to see them on your Mac's desktop.

To confirm one other thing, when you just have the Finder running, and the desktop viewed.can you see an icon for at least your internal drive? Also, when you are in that window, click on the Black Apple symbol in the upper left hand corner (next to where it says Finder), then move he pointer to where it says Preferences, and click on it. The first Preference is entitled "General", and it can be used to allow devices to be shown on the desktop. I also am running OS 10.13.3, and I have the first 3 categories checked in that Preference. I'm guessing a flash drive would be included as an External disk.

 

[Steve Hope]

Thank you that worked as explained. I have one further question since this is a 2 step operation, is it necessary to format in those 2 steps? Or can I format as expat as the first step?
///let Disk Utility Erase and Format the device again, this time choosing the format as ExFat,///
Just curious about the 2 steps, thank you.
Further, as a relatively new Mac user, is this necessary with all flash drives when new? Thanks again.

 

[honestone]

The reason I suggested the two steps, in this case, was to verify that the drive was OK. Having it first formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) was to have that verified.

I gather that you can see the flash drive on the desktop, no matter how it is formatted. Going forward, when you get a new one, you can use it "out of the box", but as I mentioned above, if you want to just use it on your Mac only, then Erase and Format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). But if you want to be able to use it also on a Windows PC, while it is OK out of the box, I have found more success Erasing and Formatting it as ExFat.

 

[Steve Hope]

Thanks for the help, I will save a note on that.

 

[honestone]

Oops! My explanation above about the Preferences was incorrect! Here is how it should read:

"To confirm one other thing, when you just have the Finder running, and the desktop viewed.can you see an icon for at least your internal drive? Also, when you are in that window, click on the heading "Finder", then move he pointer to where it says Preferences, and click on it. The first Preference is entitled "General", and it can be used to allow devices to be shown on the desktop. I also am running OS 10.13.3, and I have the first 3 categories checked in that Preference. I'm guessing a flash drive would be included as an External disk."

 

[honestone]

Thanks for the help, I will save a note on that.

You are most welcome! Glad we got it resolved.

 

[Steve Hope]

uh-oh, now after formatting has been completed, none of the 3 drives are showing on the desktop (ie mounting). When I open Disc Ute that does see them and I can eject from that but still showing up.
///I gather that you can see the flash drive on the desktop, no matter how it is formatted.///

 

[Cory Cooper]

Do they show in the sidebar in a Finder window under Devices?

C

 

[Steve Hope]

yes but on clicking that this is what a new dialog box reads; ///
“STEVES 2017” can’t be opened because the original item can’t be found.///

 

[Cory Cooper]

OK, thanks.

-Have you tried simply restarting your Mac?
-Have you tried a different USB port?
-Maybe resetting SMC and NVRAM will help.

C

 

[Steve Hope]

I was in the middle of a re-boot when your idea came in. Thats the ticket, I should have thought of that sooner. Now I will amend my Note on Formatting to add, then re-boot. Thanks all for everything I now have mountable flash drives and everything is once again "right with the world". Thank You.

 

[honestone]

Glad you got it resolved. However, I did not have the issue you did. I inserted the SanDisk Cruzer Glide 32 GB Flash drive into one of the USB ports on my Mac Mini, and it did show up on the desktop. It was formatted as ExFat, Master Boot Record. So I launched DiskUtility, and it "saw" the drive. I proceeded to have it Erase and Format the drive as Mac OS Extended (journaled), GUID Partition Map, and after it completed, the drive still showed up on the desktop.

Oh well, stranger things have happened!