external usb stick not showing up anywhere

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Level 1

8 points

external usb stick not showing up anywhere

I have the usb c adapter and have tried restarting my Mac many MANY times with the usb in and out and all different ways.

I have also checked under USB in system information, disk utility, checked finder preferences and tried using diskutil in terminal.

The system information (usb section) does change when I try to insert the usb but doesn't show much, not even sure if its the right thing.

(this is what is added by inserting the USB)

USB 3.0 Bus:

Host Controller Driver: AppleUSBXHCISPTLP

PCI Device ID: 0x9d2f

PCI Revision ID: 0x0021

PCI Vendor ID: 0x8086

USB Flash Drive:

Product ID: 0x1000

Vendor ID: 0x090c (Silicon Motion, Inc. - Taiwan)

Version: 11.00

Serial Number: AA00000000001422

Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec

Manufacturer: USB 2.0

Location ID: 0x14100000 / 1

Current Available (mA): 500

Current Required (mA): 500

Extra Operating Current (mA): 0

Iv tried all these with two different adapters and usb sticks to make sure the problem is not with the adapter or USB, I have also checked the ports by making sure my Mac charges.

Anything else I can try because nothing here seems to be working

MacBook Air 13", macOS 10.14

Posted on Apr 26, 2019 8:10 PM

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Answer 1

Apr 26, 2019 11:37 PM in response to talalala

Just in case it is like my odd USB stick, you can zero out the USB stick using another computer. Leave the USB stick without any partitions or formatting and try connecting it to the new laptop to see if it shows up. If you have another Mac, then you can zero the USB stick using the Terminal and the command line tool "dd", but you do need to be careful with it. I forget how to do the same from Windows.

You could try an SMC reset & PRAM reset (hold the PRAM reset for a minute so it activates several times).

Have you tried using your other USB-C ports? Even disconnect all other external devices?

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Answer 2

talalala Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 26, 2019 8:47 PM in response to HWTech

Thanks for the advice,

Though nothing changes before or after I insert the usb when using "diskutil list"

And I have tried all the USB sticks and drives I have.

As there anything else I can try or will it just not work?

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Answer 3

Apr 26, 2019 8:36 PM in response to talalala

It appears to be recognizing the USB stick, but it could be empty or have a non-recognizable partition or filesystem. I've also seen an instance where an older version of OSX such as 10.10.x can format a USB stick, but it will not mount on a newer system with OSX 10.13.x (the reverse was also true) which I believe is an issue with the USB stick (it has other related issues) and possibly some weird bug in OSX.

When you use "diskutil list", you should run it before attaching the USB and then run it again after attaching to see if a new "diskN" device is seen since it could appear in between other devices if any have been unmounted (includes .dmg files, iOS devices, etc) prior to connecting the USB stick. It is also possible the USB stick may show up with no partitons.

Try another USB stick or drive as it may be some odd issue with this particular USB stick.

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Answer 4

rcosta887

Level 4

3,604 points

Apr 27, 2019 5:42 AM in response to talalala

The fact that you've already tried two different USB-C adapters and different USB sticks definitely makes me wonder what's going on!

Does anything else work through the USB-C adapter, such as a USB mouse, portable hard drive, or printer?

As a good measure (if you've not already tried) you can try doing an SMC reset and also an NVRAM reset. I would also try in Safe Boot mode (boot up holding the SHIFT key). I would also see if Disk Utility in the macOS Recovery menu (booting up using ⌘-R keys) sees any of your thumb drives or not.

And just to really grasp at a straw here, is this a corporate owned/managed MacBook where possibly this has been turned off for security reasons?

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external usb stick not showing up anywhere

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