Mounting USB 2.0 thumb drive

I can't get my iMac running OS X (10.5.6) to mount a USB 2.0 thumb drive. It appears in System Profiler but can't see it on Finder or Desktop. I've already reset the SMC.

It appeared in Disk Utility. I repaired but vould not verify. Once I erased the entire volume and remounted, it looks like it worked. Thanks for your help!!!!

Similar Messages

Booting from USB 3.0 Thumb Drives (X1C Old ver)

I've been following instruction on this link to create bootable windows installation usb thumb drives (http://www.maximumpc.com/article/howtos/how_to_install_windows_7_beta_a_usb_key) And it's been working fine with usb 2.0 thumb drives on the X1C (old ver). However, for some reason it won't work with usb 3.0 thumb drives.
I've tried several, but everytime I select the thumb drive on boot selection, the screen blinks and goes back to boot selection. I'm assuming it's not reading my boot information. It works fine on usb 2.0 thumb drives.
Anyone experienced the same, and/or have solutions for this issue?
Modertor note: removed duplicate post, fixed broken link.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Just a quick note that I've just learned--thanks to my own stupidity--if you are using a docking station, the boot menu will appear on the actual laptop screen, not your attached monitors...

Windows 7 from external USB Optical or Thumb Drive

Hi,
I recently got a new 2011 17" MBP and swapped the optical for an SSD. Now I have been trying to install Windows 7 from an external DVD reader via USB....when I attempt this and boot from the device, it spins for about 15 seconds and then stops while the screen is black with just a blinking cursor. I am in the process of trying to put together a bootable thumb drive to see how that will work. Is there anything I should know here, am I wasting my time? I have seen various posts regarding various install issues on the internet, but most refer to XP or older computers.
Any advice?
Thanks,
Chris

First and foremost: Are you using OPTION to try to select the USB-DVD to boot from?
The MacBook Air has to, and has to place a set of Apple supplied drivers on USB I think or has USB DVD support.
http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp
one feature Boot Camp Assistant has been broken never worked part of 10.6.6, to download drivers to put on CD/USB. So that is 5 months status: broken and unacknowledged officially.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4407
A nice normal walk-thru install, what I think most expect -
http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/01/15/using-boot-camp-to-install-windows-7-on-you r-mac-the-complete-walkthrough/

I can't get a thumb drive with SD card to mount

I have tried restarting, trying to restart my system manager, etc. but it's not working. I can attatch the USB cable to my iPhone charger to the computer and it will mount perfectly, but the thumb drive or card will not work. Getting frustrated. Help!!!!

hello, have you set up firefox sync already on ypur pc? then please refer to the following article in order to add your phone to the synced devices: [[How do I add a device to Firefox Sync?]]

32 gig thumb drive = 26 gig?

I bought a bunch of 32 gig usb 2.0 thumb drives for lightweight portable storage. Also, I figured to use at least a couple for emergency boot/repair drives. Before, when I had done this with 16 gig drives, I reformatted them to Mac OS extended, journaled, GUID so I could boot my Intel Macs. Easy peasy. This time, however, with these 32 gig drives, the same process yields a 32 gig drive with 26 gig of usable space; somehow, nearly 6 gigs has been "allocated" (shows as a blue segment in the Disk Utility graph) and I can't figure out how or why or where. This did not happen with the smaller drives. (If I reformat back to the original FAT32, I get the use of nearly the entire drive - but then it's useless as a boot drive.) Help?

And, as you use it, be sure to empty the trash. Each volume has its own "trash bin" so to say, so if you dismount the thumbdrive and then do an Empty Trash, the junk in the thumbdrive survives since it wasn't around when bits were being blasted. Then, when you plug it back in, SURPRISE, trash magically reappears.
Last but not least, these being, well, drives, GB == Gigabytes are calculated as 10^9 = 1,000,000,000 bytes. Memory is measured in powers of 2 so gb == gibibytes which is 2^30 = 1,073,741,824 bytes.

USB thumb drive not mounting... hardware or software problem?

I have two systems I'm working with. The first is a MacBook, running 10.5.6 (also Parallels 4 for WinXP). I have no problems here.
The problematic system is a MacPro, running 10.5.6 (and Parallels 4 for WinXP).
Symptoms:
All USB ports function (sort of). I can plug my keyboard in to any port and they work. If I plug a thumb drive in (to any port), it periodically flashes, but never mounts, nor is it visible in Disk Utility or System Profiler.
If I start Parallels with the thumb drive inserted. It asks me what I want to do with the device, and I can tell it to mount on the mac, and it does. If Parallels is already started, then I insert the thumb drive, nothing (Mac OS or Parallels) notices it was inserted.
If I boot Windows directly, then insert the thumb drive, it tells me the port is not a high-speed port, but will still mount the device.
Finally, again, I have no problems with this thumb drive on my MacBook.

Roger
This may be sorted out in the Preferences for Parallel. In the configuration editor>usb option>connection options.
With parallels running does it see the usb in the menu under devices when you plug it in?

USB Thumb Drive won't appear or mount on Desktop

I'm preparing to upgrade to Mavericks, and before I do, I want to make a bootable drive on a PNY USP 2.0 FD Media thumb drive. When I insert the thumb drive into a USB port, it doesn't mount. It doesn't appear on the desktop. The drive is listed in Disk Utility, but Verify, Mount, and other First Aid options are greyed out. I can only unmount the drive from Disk Utilities. I've checked the Finder preferences, and External Disks is checked under "Show these items on the desktop". I'm not sure if I've used this thumb drive before or not. I was trying to check this disk before I created a bootable disk. I might have already done this shortly after I purchased my iMac, but I'm not sure. Other USB drives mount fine, and show all of their contents. I'm using an iMac currently running OS X 10.8.5. I'd appreciate any hints on what might be going on here. Thanks!

Pretty much sounds like the USB Drive is karput. Buy another one.
Cheers
Pete

USB Thumb Drive Not Mounting With Mavericks

I have several Thumb drives (FAT32) that no longer mount on my iMac running Mavericks.
The thumb drives do not show up in finder nor do they show up in disc utilities.
The USB bus still seems to work since other USB devices seem to connect to it, but none
of the thumb drives do. I have done an SMC and PRAM reset with no luck. I do not have
TUXERA nor NTFS-3G so nothing their to disable.
I do have a Mac Mini running Mountain Lion and all thumb drives do work with that.
Out of ideas here.

But given that other USB devices work here — what sorts of other USB devices?
I have 2 external hard drives that work on the very same USB port and an external blu-ray drive as well.
Are there any add-on anti-virus or anti-malware "tools" installed?
None. Never have.
To check the USB bus, remove all hubs and all other external USB devices from this Mac, reboot, connect one of the thumb drives directly to the Mac, and try again.
Everything re-connected except for the thumb drives. External hard drive and Blu-ray drives popped right up but no USB flash drives.
Try a different and newly-created login, and see if the flash drives work there.
I used the Guest login and the same thing, everything works except the Thumb drives.
To check the local OS X installation, see if booting this Mac from the recovery partition (if one is present)
None is present.
or booted from another (external) OS X disk allows access to the thumb drives.
I have en extern HD that is blank, but I do not know how to install Mavericks on it then run it.
Is there anything in common among these failing USB disks? Same brand and model? Or a mixture of different thumb drives?
They are all FAT32, other than that no I have Cruzer, Kingston and PNY brands. 2GB 4GB and 16GB.
Are the OS X systems involved both similar configurations, or are they very different versions?
Mac Mini is Mountain Lion and has no issues with the thumb drive.
Intel iMac is Mavericks and my Mac Book Pro is Mavericks. Neither one of them can mount my USB sticks.
Thanks for your complete reply, you had some items that I did not try but unfortunately it did not help yet.

Script to mount/unmount a USB thumb drive

I am looking for an applescript to mount or unmount a USB thumb drive.
I tried:
tell application "Finder"
do shell script "diskutil mount /dev/disk1"
end tell
This did not work for me

I tested on a USB stick, no probs, I put my USB stick in a slot, waited for it to mount, ran the script using the "unmount first", then ran the "mount" second worked fine after that using the "unmount " part of the script, I found though that if I right clicked "eject" that the script would not mount the volume.
You could try something as simple as the below maybe.
tell application "Finder"
eject "LEXAR MEDIA"
end tell
set _VolumeName to "LEXAR MEDIA"
set deviceName to do shell script "diskutil list | grep \"" & _VolumeName & "\" | awk '{print $6}'"
--do shell script "diskutil mountDisk /dev/" & deviceName --mount
do shell script "diskutil unmountDisk /dev/" & deviceName --unmount
Budgie

USB thumb drive mounting issues in Lion?

Hi all,
I just installed Lion on my mid-2010 13" MacBook Pro a couple of days ago. All seemed to be going great until I tried to use my USB thumb drives. I have four of these (3 Sandisk and 1 Imation), and none will mount. When I go into Disk Utility I can see them, but when I try to mount them manually the response is "Mount Failed" and some text regarding running Disk First Aid. However, even when I repair the volume, it still won't mount. This happens with all four drives, and I used them all without incident a few days ago when I still had Snow Leopard installed. They are all formatted for FAT32. I've seen a few scattered messages about USB and NTFS mounting issues, but it appears to be an isolated problem. Anybody else having this issue? If so, are there any workarounds? I'd hate to have to revert back to Snow Leopard just to use my thumb drives.

Try to use the disk utility an format one of your Thumb Drive, and see if it can mount.

Problems mounting USB thumb drives and transferring files

My iMac 24" (10.5.4) won't recognize a USB thumb drive (even if plugged directly into computer, not hub) unless I restart. Then when I try to transfer large number of files back or forth from thumb drive, it won't complete the transfer, gets hung up.
None of these problems with my Intel MacBook (also 10.5.4).

You might try reformatting the usb drive using Disk Utility. Use MacOS Extended(Journaled). That might help.
lenn

Prepare an usb thumb drive, to boot windows 7 or 8 in UEFI mode

Purpose of this post:
Prepare an usb thumb drive, to boot windows 7 in UEFI mode and install the system in pure UEFI mode.
Why am I writing this:
I had a hard time finding out how to make a custom installation of windows 7 in pure UEFI mode, and avoid using the factory restore disks. After hours of research, experiments etc I finally got the point and found a solution. And I'm happy to share my research with you. I hope this will be of help. If something is not clear, or more information is needed, I will be glad to explain things further.
History:
As most of you already know, BIOS was developed for PC in early eighties and has remained unchanged in recent years. But, since 2000, Intel started working on a new firmware interface, called Extensible Firmware Interface, abbreviated EFI. And since 2005 United EFI Forum has been handling the responsibility for development, management and promotion of UEFI specifications. Bigger companies like Intel, AMD, Microsoft and Dell have already started to bring out their products in accordance to UEFI standards which has more stable, secure and easier to use interface.
How does UEFI works (in a nutshell):
Once you power on the UEFI based PC, the Pre-EFI is executed which initializes only the CPU, memory and the chipset. This followed by Driver Execution Environment (DEX) where other hardware is initialized.
Advantages of UEFI:
    It can integrate various drivers this will not require to load during booting so saves time.
   PC can connect to network without OS.
   Also integrated drivers allow rendering GUI based control panel which out dates the old school bluish BIOS screen.
   Not all the installed hard drives are scanned as boot drive is set during the installation of OS in UFFI.
   Applications like anti-virus and diagnostic tools can be stored on virtually any non-volatile storage devices attached to a PC.
For a system to boot and install in UEFI the partition table of the HDD should be GPT (GUID Partition Table), not the old school MBR (master boot record). GPT has many advantages, can have virtually an unlimited number of partitions (windows will allow only 128) and impressively big partitions.
Since UEFI has a lot of advantages why not having a system install and boot in UEFI mode? AFAIK new Lenovo notebooks/netbooks are UEFI capable and OS’s are already installed in pure UEFI mode.
So, let’s go now to the point. Do you want to have more control over your HDD? Let say, you have a 320GB HDD and you have divided it in two partitions, one of 50GB, for your Windows 7, and the remaining for your data. If something goes wrong and you need to restore your system to factory default, with the recovery disks, it will wipe your partition scheme, set the system to default and this way your data will be lost.
You may want to make a “vanilla” installation of windows from a USB thumb drive and avoid using factory recovery disks. Now here things get complicated. A standard preparation of the USB with Microsoft’s software (Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool), or other tools, will give you a bios installation, not a UEFI one. So for the system to boot, you will need to change some settings in bios, and changing it from UEFI to legacy bios. The installation will prepare the HDD in MBR partition table, and you will lose all the advantages of UEFI, described above.
Now this can be avoided, by properly preparing an USB to boot and install in UEFI mode. Here are the steps:
Step by step tutorial:
1.   In a windows computer, download a legal copy (although trial) of the windows 7 os. You can do this from here: http://www.mydigitallife.info/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-from-digital-river/
Be sure to download the same version that came preinstalled in your computer. For example, if you have a Lenovo x120e, with a Windows 7 professional, 64bit, download an iso image of the Windows 7 professional 64bit.
2.   Once downloaded burn the iso to a USB thumb (at least 4GB) using Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool.
3.   After preparing this, create a folder on your computer, name it whatever (i.e. W7pro64bit). Go to the root of your USB
and select all the files and folders there (9 in total) copy, and paste to your folder you created, W7pro64bit.
4.   Using windows format the usb again in FAT32. Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool, formats it in NTFS. We need a FAT32 formatted disk to achieve our goal. Formating again the USB in FAT32 will not touch the MBR of the USB thumbdrive. And after copying back the files (see step 6) the USB will still be bootable. (nice, and simple, isn't it?)
5.   Now go to the folder W7pro64bit and do the following:
a.   Browse to W7pro64bit\sources\ and open install.wim file. It’s a big file, and can be opened as an archive with 7zip (free software). Do not extract it, do not modify it, just browse the file with 7zip. Just to be sure you do not mess with that file, you can copy it somewhere else in your computer, and than procede.
b.   Browse this file (install.wim) to \1\Windows\Boot\EFI\ and locate the file bootmgfw.efi. Do not move, delete it, but just drag that file to the desktop. (if you have copied the file install.wim to another place in your computer, than you are safely do whatever you want with that file ) Close the 7zip program to release the install.wim file.
c.   Rename the file you just copied to the desktop from bootmgfw.efi to bootx64.efi.
d.   Now go back to w7pro64bit folder and browse \efi\Microsoft. Form there copy the folder boot and paste it one level up, on the folder: \efi. It will look like this: \efi\boot.
e.   Now copy the file you saved on your desktop and renamed (bootx64.efi) to \efi\boot (inside the boot folder you copied on step 5d
6.   Now go to the root of the folder W7pro64bit and select all folders and files (9 in total) copy, and paste all those files back to your USB thumb drive. (see step 4 for more info)
7.   Go to the computer that you are going to reinstall, and before restarting it, use the program ABR (activation backup and restore) to backup the license of your windows os. (use google to find ABR). Advanced Tokens Manager (ATM ) is great too. This link may be of help: Backup and restore W7 activation. After the program finishes its magic, it will create a few files inside the folder where the program itself reside. Copy these files to a new folder in your usb. Rename it to ABR so you will quickly find it later. (if you decide to use ATM, the procedure may be a little different. But you are smart enough to figure out how to use it)
8.   Backup to an external storage all your data before continuing.(reminder: are you sure you saved the license as explained in step 7, to a safe place? To a external drive, to another computer? If you are sure, than go on with step 9)
9.   Now restart your laptop, and enter your bios settings. Go to the boot settings, and set the computer to boot in UEFI only. Not both, not UEFI first, or legacy, BUT UEFI only. Save and restart.
10.   Press f12 (or the corresponding key for your machine) to choose the boot device and chose to start from the USB thumb drive with your windows 7 pro 64 bit.
11.   If everything is done correctly, your computer will boot from the USB.
12.   Follow the wizard and choose a custom install, not upgrade. At the disk partition window delete all the partition you see there until you have only one unallocated space.
13.   Select it, and click next to install windows, without making partition in this point. The installer will create a GPT partition table not a MBR since the USB booted in UEFI mode.
14.   Immediately after the first restart remove your USB thumb, and the installation will continue from the HDD. Wait until installation finishes.
15.   When you will be finally on your desktop, on the installed OS plug your USB go to the ABR folder and click on restore.exe. It will restore your license and your copy of windows will be activated.
16.   Now you can go in computer management/disk management and shrink the HDD to create your partitioning scheme. Make sure to leave enough space to your windows os. (30gb or more for extra programs you will install at your choice)
17.      Download from lenovo.com thinkvantage system update and update your system. Windows update too can install all the necessary drivers, if you need only basic drivers support.
Note: if tvsu will fail to work, see this:
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkVantage-Technologies/ThinkVantage-System-Update-Servers-down-the-wh...
It may look a looong tutorial, but once you do this for the first time, it will look a piece of cake.
Final words:
From now on, you can install windows 7 in UEFI mode with your special USB without changing your partition scheme anymore. If you have a data partition beside your os partition (see the example above), when you reinstall the system using your USB thumb drive, at the disk partition window chose the partition where windows is installed, delete it, and reinstall windows to the unformatted area. Your partition with your data will be intact and the installation will automatically mount your data partition to the system. And, all the scope of this procedure, you will always have a pure UEFI installation of the system, with all its benefits.
Have fun!
abvasili
Moderator note: changed subject to match new content. Was: Prepare an usb thumb drive, to boot windows 7 in UEFI mode
I'm just a volunteer. I like to help others where I can. Do my ideas work? I hope so. o_O
Who helped you today? Do not forget to thank him.
My hardware: TP x120e 0596-2ru. Windows 7, sp1, 64Bit, English, installed in UEFI mode.

seanare wrote:
Thank you, as I noted here, your post was the key to my getting a Windows 8 SecureBooting setup on a W530.
In the case of Windows 8, I needed to copy the files away, reformat my USB key as FAT32 and copy the files back, and viola I was able to boot from my USB install media with the BIOS set to only boot UEFI. From there, there rest was easy (for Windows 8, the copying and renaming is not necessary, the key is having a FAT32 partition on the USB media, rather than an NTFS one; the EFI files are already in the right location).
Thank you again good sir.
You are welcome... and I'm happy that the change of the file system helps with windows 8 too. Thanks for confirming that.
abvasili
I'm just a volunteer. I like to help others where I can. Do my ideas work? I hope so. o_O
Who helped you today? Do not forget to thank him.
My hardware: TP x120e 0596-2ru. Windows 7, sp1, 64Bit, English, installed in UEFI mode.

I need a way to get usb thumb-drive securely recognized as a apple keyboard

I posted this question over at Developer Discussions also, just to get more eyes on it, not to be disruptive.
So, I would like to utilize a maximum-length Admin. password (255 characters?) without having to manually type it in each time I login, install/update software, or for any other reason. The perfect situation would be some type of script or software installation onto a USB pen drive (2 gig sony)which is inserted into the macbook (via usb) when the Leopard Login screen appears. It logs me in, then, afterwards, it creates a clickable icon on the desktop that achieves the same goal (entering a long admin password securely). And all of the above is achieved using the built-in security of Keychain access, without having to continuously mount and unmount the drive.
Searching google produces many expensive products that do not fit: Securikey, omnikey, smart cards, tokends, and on and on. They seem to have figured this out at microsoft - not that it matters much, except that it appears to be possible.
One problem is that a USB thumb drive is not mounted until after login, it seems, but, I plugged in a friend's usb apple keyboard from the year 2000 and was able to type in my password at login. And, an email reply elsewhere suggested writing a daemon (that constantly runs in the background of the operating system) that could recognize the drive and accept a script from it that inputs the password and executes the 'enter' command.
I don't know how to write daemons yet, but I can stumble around a bit with bash and applescripts, and I can copy any Xcode project out of a book and make it run properly. I'm a beginner.
This project might create security issues for my operating system, but I'm really not concerned about that because this is a computer I don't rely on and can safely perform experiments on. And I would like to use this as an opportunity to learn - so I'm going to give it a whirl anyway - unless someone has already accomplished something similar. In that case, why reinvent the wheel and plug it into the wall, eh?
Basically I am asking for help. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

You don't need to get deep into programming to do much of this.
launchd, the background process that's responsible for launching most of the background processes on your machine, has the ability to launch a script based on disk mount events.
StartOnMount <boolean>
This optional key causes the job to be started every time a filesystem is
mounted.
So you could create a LaunchDaemon script that watches for a disk mount. When a disk is inserted your script is fired off. You'd need to perform some verification to ensure the disk is, indeed, your USB stick and not some other device, then it can trigger the rest of the login process. Off hand I'd look to osascript to run an AppleScript-based keystroke, but there may be other ways, too.
One big question relates to securing your password. Clearly you can't store it in the script, so you'd have to read it from somewhere. You also can't store it on the USB stick unless you somehow encrypt it (otherwise someone can just look at the files on the USB stick and get your password), but AppleScript can use the keychain, too, although I'm not sure what keys would be available prior to login, so it requires some experimentation.

USB thumb drive crashes MBP and PowerBook G4

Hi!
I have a USB thumb drive. It mounts on the Desktop (as two drives, which is not strange because it has both an internal 6 MB of memory and a 2GB SD card) and I can open them. But if I attempt to copy a file either to or from the drive, the Finder hangs forever.
This problem exists both on a shiny new MacBook Pro with 10.4.7, and a PowerBook G4 with 10.3---in either case, I must hard-reboot the machine.
DiskUtility says that the drive checks out OK.
Any thoughts? I tried reformatting the thumb drive, which worked temporarily; but when I added a file to the drive on another machine and tried to transfer it to the Mac, the thing hangs Finder again.
I don't have any problems with the drive on PCs, and I don't have the problem with other USB drives on the Mac.
Xcott

It sounds like the file system is corrupt. I am assuming it's FAT32. I would reformat the drive partitions on a Windows machine and see if that helps.
Also, because it's a dual, you might want to make certain that you do not plug it into a hub or a keyboard but directly into your Mac's USB host port. It may need additional power...
Good Luck!

Can Wireless Live! record to USB thumb drive?

If I were to get a USB portable thumb drive (8MB) and plug it into the Live! server could I have it record video when motion is detected? That would be a great feature since I wouldn't have to turn my home computer on while on vacation and it would allow me to access the files remotely.
Another question, if I were to change the camera to one that had a microphone as well as video, would the audio be recorded? Could I hear the audio while remotely monitoring the camera?

Michael Levin wrote:
...I rebooted just in case, and it showed me a login screen again but also a message saying that the boot volume (the thumbdrive) is full. What did it fill it with? Since it's possible to boot off a DVD, I guess it doesn't really need to write to the boot volume, right? What am I doing wrong?
When you boot from the internal, start Disk Utility and mount the USB drive, what does it say about available space?
FWIW, I did the same thing in order to use DiskWarrior on a rMBP and what's on the USB drive is just a standard, bootable installation of Mountain Lion plus DiskWarrior. Disk Utility tells me that I have 7.43 GB free but that's because I used a 32 GB flash drive, not a 16 GB. Most of the time, if you're booting off a DVD, it's an installer, not a fully functioning install; DiskWarrior used to provide a bootable DVD but the last one was OS 10.4. I'm surprised you could fit a full ML install on 16 GB. I could fit Snow Leopard on a 16 GB flash drive, but not ML.
And yes, since the OS thinks it's simply a standard installation (which it is), it does have to be able to write to the boot drive. Also, the installer customizes the installation for the Mac it's being installed on. If the other machine you used to install ML on the flash drive is a different kind of Mac, you may run into compatibility problems.

Mounting USB 2.0 thumb drive

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