Cannot copy to USB Flash Drive

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Level 1

6 points

Cannot copy to USB Flash Drive

I'm brand new to Mac Book Pro and have used PC's for years. So this may be a stupid question. Using Finder I can copy/paste files from my flash drive to the Mac, but I cannot copy from my Mac to the flash drive. Why?

MacBook Pro core i7, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Apr 26, 2010 12:45 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Roger Wilmut1

Level 10

131,132 points

Apr 26, 2010 1:12 AM in response to ddell

Your flash drive is probably formatted to NTFS which Macs can read but not write to. If you reformat it to FAT32 then both Windows and Mac will read from and write to it.

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Answer 2

Apr 26, 2010 2:19 AM in response to ddell

Insert the drive. Copy its contents to your Mac.

Open Disk Utility (in Applications/Utilities). Select the flash drive in thesidebar (the top entry for it). Click on the 'Erase' tab in the main pane. Type a name in the 'Name' field. Set the Format to 'MS-DOS (FAT)'.

Doing this will erase everything on the drive.

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Answer 3

ddell Author

Level 1

6 points

Apr 26, 2010 1:40 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

I didn't know that. But, how do I reformat it with a Mac?

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Answer 4

ddell Author

Level 1

6 points

Apr 26, 2010 4:49 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Thanks for your help.

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