Q: Why won't my Mac Book Pro recognize my Flash Drive?

Brilliant! Thank you.

ashleyvzqz wrote:

 

Like I mentioned previously, I went through all the preferences and EVERYTHING is right,

And yet the drive is formatted incorrectly, as NTFS. Try formatting it correctly, for a Mac

HERE is the problem, and its explains a little bit as to why. Now HERE is the fix it driver. Now here come the tricky part. The driver is not a plug and play .DMG... SOO all you have to do is download and right click the DMG and click on open with disk utility. The application will show up and you will see the DMG just chilling there. Right click again on The DMG and click Covert "such n' such file.DMG", Then changed "Compressed" to "Read/Write" save to wherever is most convenient. Finally we click on the NEW FILE we created. A window will open up right click on "USB Mass Storage Install" open with Terminal. The terminal will do everything for you. Close out of terminal then restart your computer. Then you should have a no bull**** fix for USB issues. sorry for the long post but this fixed things for me.

Your answer does sound crazy.  But it worked!!!  I've spent a lot of time surfing Google for help.  I was ready to make an Apple One To One appointment to fix this.  In one last gesture of desperation, I inserted my flash drive v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y.  Amen and THANK YOU!!!

Mac does not recognize or use NTSB directly! Only windows! The USB drive I have is NTSB due to file size over 4gb per file. I used the Paragon NTSB converter available here. It seems the computer does not handle NTSB in the OSX operating system. The program converts it and works!

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/eshop.html?affChecked=1

cost me $19.99 but under volumes I could click and mount the drive and it worked with no problem!

Hope this helps someone? $19.99 was cheap vs. losing family photos and drive content!!!

My new Imac was not recognizing my external drives. When I used my hub (2.0 only) all was fine.

When I plugged the drives directly to the iMac SLOWLY the drives were recognized.

I am glad all is OK. What a strange fix but glad I found this thread.

Don

I have a similar problem with a Macbook air 2.1

I bought an Adata 32gb USB thumb drive, and like someone said in the thread it work about 3 times then stopped.

I thought it was the macbook port but other usb devices work in that port including another 4gb thumb drive and a AC powered external drive.

The adata 32gb drive also works in all my other macs (mac pro 5.1 and macbook pro )

So im thinking its the speed of the bus + the size of the thumb drive. In any case Im stumped too

I removed my USB hub and removed my beta El Capitan version.

All is OK now.

Thanks for replies.

Don

I have a similar problem with a Macbook air 2.1

I bought an Adata 32gb USB thumb drive, and like someone said in the thread it work about 3 times then stopped.

I thought it was the macbook port but other usb devices work in that port including another 4gb thumb drive and a AC powered external drive.

The adata 32gb drive also works in all my other macs (mac pro 5.1 and macbook pro )

So im thinking its the speed of the bus + the size of the thumb drive.,

I bought an 8gb SanDisk usb2.0 and it works fine, its all which thumb drive brand you buy!! Dont buy ADATA!!!

Add me to the list of having my two-year-old MBP say my new USB flash drive is unreadable.  I've tried most everything in this thread and still don't know if I should return it (at my expense to eBay seller) or keep trying stuff.  It's a 128GB USB 3.0 drive of unknown mfgr.  OK, it wasn't the most expensive out there.  The first time I plugged it in, the disk's icon appeared on the desktop, but not all I get is the "cannot read this device" even though it shows up in Disk Utility.  But in DU, most every option for formatting is grayed out.  I tried partitioning to one partition and after a while got a message that it could not read the last few blocks.  I reset the SMC and PRAM, nothing.  Inserted very slowly, nothing. 

my MBA does not in any way (finder or Disk Utilities) recognize my compact flash card.  i can take this exact same card and reader, and plug it into my windows pc, and it see it. 

I've tried every available format exFAT, FAT.....  and nothing works.

I've tried plugging it in very very very slow, and fast and in-between!  nothing works!!!!!! 

I have a macbook air model a1466 (I've also tried it in three other MacBooks, with no success.)

running OS X 10.10.5

I have a SANDisk 16GB compact flash

The mac does recognize my old 4GB compact flash using the exact same reader.

This is obviously a Mac issue.

The solution that I tripped over in my case was to not plug in the flash drive all the way... Sounds weird, I know... But if I plugged the drive in all the way, then pulled it back out about 2-3mm, it would work. It appears to be a physical contact issue in my case (late 2013 MBP). This is with an Acom 32GB USB3 drive with a very standard looking usb connector.

The problem is not Apple as some suggested, it is simply USB 2 and USB 3 compatibility.

This problem appear mostly with older computers that have USB 2 and users trying newer USB 3 storage devices or vice versa.

Try connecting your flash drive using a good quality USB hub that would do the trick

this worked for me on a new macbook.  Never had this problem until today.. then no USBs showed up on my finder.  I could see it via utilities bit still couldn't get to the files. ODD!  I wondered if it was a result of the new El Capitain upgrade but reading the posts it seems not. Thanks Joe bat!

I seem to have a new variant on the above problem.  I have a late 2009 iMac running El Capitan and have a SanDisk 32Gb wireless flash drive.  When I plug the drive into the iMac, it isn't recognised in System Information and doesn't show on the Disk Utility.  Plugging in the drive slowly or pulling out a touch equally makes no difference.  I thought this may be because the iMac is old so I tried a current (also running El Capitan) and an old Macbook where it works fine.  So it doesn't appear to be an issue with the drive.  I looked for disk utility preferences but couldn't find that option - where is that??  Is it possible it may be something to do with not ejecting properly when I have used it previously?