Y50-70 - Cannot read USB "Thumb" drive on any of USB Ports

I've tried 3 different USB drives on all 3 ports on this laptop. When inserted, a drive letter is assigned however it tells me that the USB drive has to be formatted first. All 3 of these USB drives can be read on other computers. The computer in question has Win 8.1 installed and even if I try to perform the format (on a new USB drive) - it tells me that it cannot complete the operation. I can read any of these USB drives on other computers which have 8.1 and Windows 7 running. I should also say that the USB ports on the Y50-70 work fine when I plug in a mouse or a portable DVD player. All USB drivers are reportedly up to date. All components of the USB are reported as healthy in device manager. The only problem is reading any USB drive. They could read USB drives until a couple of weeks ago when this started happening. I've also checked for VIRUSs, etc (in fact Lenovo support has confimed that the PC is free of virus'). I'm really stumped here. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
How
PS - Lenovo support wants to charge me for a solution although the PC is still under warranty. I tried this service one time before and they did not solve the problem and I had work through my credit card company in order to get my money refunded (different computer, different problem). I do not have faith in Lenovo's "pay for" technical support.

howband wrote:
I've tried 3 different USB drives on all 3 ports on this laptop. When inserted, a drive letter is assigned however it tells me that the USB drive has to be formatted first. All 3 of these USB drives can be read on other computers. The computer in question has Win 8.1 installed and even if I try to perform the format (on a new USB drive) - it tells me that it cannot complete the operation. I can read any of these USB drives on other computers which have 8.1 and Windows 7 running. I should also say that the USB ports on the Y50-70 work fine when I plug in a mouse or a portable DVD player. All USB drivers are reportedly up to date. All components of the USB are reported as healthy in device manager. The only problem is reading any USB drive. They could read USB drives until a couple of weeks ago when this started happening. I've also checked for VIRUSs, etc (in fact Lenovo support has confimed that the PC is free of virus'). I'm really stumped here. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
How
PS - Lenovo support wants to charge me for a solution although the PC is still under warranty. I tried this service one time before and they did not solve the problem and I had work through my credit card company in order to get my money refunded (different computer, different problem). I do not have faith in Lenovo's "pay for" technical support.
Try going to device manager and let the OS reinstall the Universal Serial Bus Controller drivers. Delete them first then reboot.

Similar Messages

OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive can run from usb stick?

OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive can run from usb stick[no install]?

Your questions are easily answered by means of a web search, which you can do as well as I can. You can order a Lion installer on a USB stick. I don't know how big it is, and it doesn't matter, because all you can do with that stick is install Lion, which is what you don't seem to want. If you have a Mac and want to be able to run Lion from an external storage device, the capacity of the device has to be at least 7 GB.
Apple - OS X Lion - Technical specifications
I hope you understand that if you buy the Lion USB installer with the intention of installing onto a PC, or running Lion on a PC without installing, you'll be wasting your money. It won't work.

I have a new USB thumb drive that works in my 2010 iMac but not in my 2012 MacBook Pro

Today I purchased an 'autodrive' usb thumbdrive at Staples. The drive works fine on my mid 2010 iMac, and my Asus Netbook running Windows 7. However, it is not recognized at all by System Information or Disk Utility on my mid 2012 Macbook Pro. Both Macs are running Mountain Lion 10.8.2.
If I connect my 2 year old SanDisk USB thumb drive to the same USB port on my Macbook Pro, it is immediately recognized and a finder window opens. The SanDisk drive is also recognized properly by the iMac and the Netbook.
Is there any way to further debug this issue to get a better idea of why the device is not being recognized by the Macbook Pro?
Thanks,
-Scott

I am having this exact same problem with my New MBP 15" quad core 2.6GHz i7 on 10.8.2. I have other thumb drives that work, but an older thumb drive that works on my prior MBP 15" 2.7GHz dual core i7 on 10.7 and XP and Windows 8 laptops isn't recognized at all by the newer MBP. This thumbdrive is only 256MB and may be USB 1, but USB 1 stuff should work on a USB3 interface unless it's a bug. I've freshly formatted the drive and tested it with disk utility on the older MBP, so it's an issue with the newer Mac's USB controller or MacOS 10.8.2
I suspect a bug.

When I plug in a Lexar thumb drive, I get a "USB Low Power Notice' saying it cannot operate because it needs more power than is available. This is new. Thumb drives worked last week. Any suggestions? Is this an apple or a Lexar issue?

When I plug in a Lexar thumb drive, I get a "USB Low Power Notice' saying it cannot operate because it needs more power than is available. This is new. Thumb drives worked last week. Any suggestions? Is this an apple or a Lexar issue?

Apple intentional, use a powered USB hub instead.

Install GRUB to usb thumb drive

Hi,
I'm trying to install grub to a usb thumb drive for a portable arch install. I've read the wiki for grub and installing arch on a pendrive but i'm receiving the following error no matter what i do.
sh-4.3# grub-install /dev/sdb
Installing for i386-pc platform.
grub-install: warning: Attempting to install GRUB to a disk with multiple partition labels. This is not supported yet..
grub-install: warning: Embedding is not possible. GRUB can only be installed in this setup by using blocklists. However, blocklists are UNRELIABLE and their use is discouraged..
grub-install: error: will not proceed with blocklists.
sh-4.3# grub-install /dev/sdb1
Installing for i386-pc platform.
grub-install: error: cannot find a GRUB drive for /dev/sdb1. Check your device.map.
sh-4.3#
Anyone know what this means and how i can install grub?
Thanks.

Then verify that your installation is corresponding with the UUID rather than addressing by kernel name.
What says
$ ls -lF /dev/disk/by-partuuid

OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive

If I buy an OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive can I use it to erase the OSX Lion hidden partition on the internal hard drive and install Snow Leopard? I have more problems with Lion than with any other OSX that I've used since 1986 and want to return to the last of the non-BigBrother OSXs.

Downgrade Lion to Snow Leopard
1. Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.
This will erase the whole drive so be sure to backup your files if you don't have a backup already. If you have performed a TM backup using Lion be aware that you cannot restore from that backup in Snow Leopard (see below.) I suggest you make a separate backup using Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.1.
If you have Snow Leopard Time Machine backups, do a full system restore per #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. If you have subsequent backups from Lion, you can restore newer items selectively, via the "Star Wars" display, per #15 there, but be careful; some Snow Leopard apps may not work with the Lion files.

USB thumb drive shows up twice

Dear all,
I have a 1GB USB thumb drive which always mounts in the finder twice:
i.e.
I am talking about the finder window and the desktop: once I have plugged in the usb stick it then shows two connections to the stick:
one is called:
USBDISKPRO
the other is called:
NO NAME
I just got my G5 and I have partitioned my disk, though I dont think this has any influence on my problem...
the problem is exactly the same as the one mentioned last october (please see here below) in this forum but has not been aswered.
I hope I have more luck.
thank you!
Hynek
USB Thumb Drive shows up twice
Posted: Oct 11, 2005 10:07 AM
I have a 64MB USB thumb drive (the only name on it I can see is VeriTest, which might be the name of some company that was giving them away) which always mounts on the desktop twice. I have used drive utility to re-format it (but even in drive utility it shows up twice).
On a 10.3 machine yesterday I reformatted it while zeroing out all the data and it only showed up once. But today when plugged back into my 10.4 machine, it shows up twice again.
It also gets weirder... I can look at either "drive" and delete the file that is on there, but it does not get deleted on the second drive - so the two of them seem to get out of sync. I cannot, however, empty the trash because it says the item in the trash is in use.
I know it's just a 64MB little thingy, but I find it quite useful (but this is annoying when I have to reformat to erase a file)... Any ideas?
Ben
G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

My guess is that the PC isn't showing you the second partition at all. If a drive is partitioned, the correct behavior is to show it as two separate volumes. If your PC is not showing the second volume, so showing them both as one volume, either way your PC is behaving incorrectly.
Did you install some software on your PC to use your thumb drive? When mine is inserted into a PC, it automatically installs software to manage the secure partition. Maybe yours has some kind of similar software that makes it appear as a single volume.

How to create bootable USB thumb drive from Lion on Mac Mini 2011?

Hello folks
Yesterday my new Mac Mini (Core i7 2,7 Ghz, 4 GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD6630M 256 MB) arrived. It replaces my old Mac Mini (Core Duo 1,83 Ghz, 2 GB RAM, Intel GMA950 64 MB). One day I'll replace the 500 GB 5400 RPM HDD in this Mini by an Intel SSD drive (just like I did with my previous Mini). I'll do a fully clean install then (formatting the SSD drive in Disk Utility and then installing Lion on it from a bootable USB thumb drive). The only problem is I can't seem to download Lion for free from the Mac AppStore (MAS) although I have bought a new Mac Mini which came with Lion pre-installed. I know how to create a bootable USB thumb drive with Lion on it when you download it from the MAS. But that's the problem... I can't seem to download Lion from the MAS for free. When I open the MAS while holding down the Option key I can download Lion but it will charge me for it. Is there any way I can download Lion from the MAS without paying for it? Since it already came with my new Mac Mini 2011 this should be possible I guess?
And will I still be able to download the iLife '11 apps (iPhoto, iMovie and Garageband) for FREE that came with my new Mac Mini when I do a fully clean install as described above? Thanks in advance.
Greetings
Jocau

After doing some research, it seems that there are only 2 WAYS to do a complete reinstall of Lion on the Mac Mini 2011 without paying for the Lion download in the Mac AppStore (i.e. recreating every partition, also the Recovery HD partition, from scratch e.g. when installing Lion on a clean HDD/SSD).
1) COMPLETELY clone the Mac Mini 2011 HDD including all of its partitions to an external drive and restore it when you want to do a complete reinstall.
2) Use the LION INTERNET RECOVERY feature built-in into new Macs that ship with Lion (this feature is present in new Macs starting from the Mac Mini 2011 and Macbook Air 2011).
OS X Lion: About Lion Recovery
Lion Internet Recovery
If you happen to encounter a situation in which you cannot start from the Recovery HD, such as your hard drive stopped responding or you installed a new hard drive without Mac OS X installed, new Mac models introduced after public availability of OS X Lion automatically use the Lion Internet Recovery feature if the Recovery HD (Command-R method above) doesn't work. Lion Internet Recovery lets you start your Mac directly from Apple's Servers. The system runs a quick test of your memory and hard drive to ensure there are no hardware issues.
Lion Internet Recovery presents a limited interface at first, with only the ability to select your preferred Wi-Fi network and, if needed, enter the WPA passphrase. Next, Lion Internet Recovery will download and start from a Recovery HD image. From there, you are offered all the same utilities and functions described above.
As with the Recovery HD, reinstallation of OS X Lion from Lion Internet Recovery requires an Internet connection. See "Supported network configurations and protocols" below.
Restoring iLife applications after Internet Restore of OS X Lion
If you reinstall Lion on a new Mac that shipped with OS X Lion installed, on an erased or replaced hard drive, you can download iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand from the Mac App Store.
After installation, start from Lion.
Double-click the App Store icon in the dock.
Enter your Apple ID and password.
Click Purchases.
If you haven't previously accepted your bundled iLife applications within the Mac App Store, you should see your iLife applications appear in the Accept portion of the screen. Click Accept.
You may be asked for your Apple ID and password once again. Your iLife applications now move to the Purchased section. These applications are part of the software that came with your Lion based computer. Your account will not be charged for them. Click Install to compete installation of your applications.
Source: Lion Recovery
It's a bit sad that these seem to be the only 2 options. Lion Internet Recovery is the preferred one here since my monthly internet traffic limit isn't a problem (but my download speed is). This problem could have been easily solved by Apple by just checking the system specs or serial number when trying to download Lion from the Mac AppStore. By using one of the 2 options in my previous sentence the Mac AppStore could see that I have a new Mac Mini 2011 that ships with Lion which would give me the option to download Lion from the Mac AppStore for free and eventually create a bootable USB thumb drive of it.

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.

Can I use a usb thumb drive for Time Machine?

Can I use a usb thumb drive for Time Machine backups?

Hello,
Yes you can use a (large) thumb drive. The most common format for a Time Machine backup drive is Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Hope this will help.

Using USB thumb drive with Parallels and Microsoft Windows XP

I installed Parallels 3.0 because I need to use a few windows applications for work. I am currently unable to find the USB thumb drive when I plug it into the USB port. It is connected and is selected, but I can't figure out how to access it. I check in "My Computer" just like I would on a PC, but the thumb drive is not listed. Any suggestions.
Macbook with Leopard
Thanks.
Jon

You're right, it should show up under My Computer. You may want to post your question over on the Parallels forums: http://forums.parallels.com as they're more geared toward the issue since Parallels is not an Apple product.

Using a usb thumb drive with a mac

So, I'm a recent windows user and when using a USB thumb drive, if you erased something, it would automatically update the thumb drive and show the right amount of free space.
I've noticed with the mac, if you delete an item, it doesn't update, and you need to go into disk utility and format in order to show the appropriate amount of free space.
Is there an easier way to do this?
I searched for a few minutes on this topic, but couldn't seem to find anything. All apologies if I missed it.

Choose Empty Trash from the Finder menu, or from the menu which appears when you control-click or click and hold on the Trash icon in the Dock.
(38516)

How can I create a Lion USB Thumb Drive with the 11E2068 build?

It seems that the Lion build from the Mac App Store is not compatible with my Macbook Pro Retina 15''. It's seems I would need the the build 11E2068 for my USB thumb drive to work properly.
I don't want to go through the internet recovery and loose 8 hours.
Is there anyway for my to get that build(11E2068) on my USB thumb drive?
Thanks,

keg55's given you article that allows you to capture the installer. These are the critical portions:
Once that data has been downloaded, Lion Recovery restarts your Mac, immediately installs the OS, and then deletes the installer data. The trick is to interrupt that process—safely—so you can grab the installer data and keep it. Here are the steps to take:
IMO, Apple needs to rethink this process. Unless users with machines that had Lion preinstalled, like yourself, let Apple know this process is terrible, they'll not change their minds.
7. IMPORTANT: Monitor the download’s progress. As the progress bar gets near the end, get ready, because once the status reads About 0 seconds remaining, the progress bar will disappear, the installer will spend a minute or two cleaning up, and then your Mac will restart. As soon as the screen goes dark, unplug your external drive. If you wait too long, your Mac will boot into the Mac OS X installer on that drive, starting the installation process. Interrupting that process can leave your Mac unable to install OS X unless you restart it and—I’m not joking—zap PRAM.

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?

Y50-70 - Cannot read USB "Thumb" drive on any of USB Ports

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