USB stick (FAT32) not recognised by iMac, but is okay on 2004 iBook

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Level 2

380 points

USB stick (FAT32) not recognised by iMac, but is okay on 2004 iBook

I have a 2GB USB stick that is formatted in FAT32 and is recognised by my 2004 iBook running 10.4.11.

When I plug it into my 2013 iMac running OSX 10.9, the stick is not recognised. I have tried three different USB ports. All other sticks work.

Any suggestion why a 2004 iBook can read the stick but my iMac can't?

Background

The stick was formatted on an Allen & Heath Qu-24 professional audio mixer, and then used to store mixer settings. The manual says the stick can be used for archiving the settings on a computer…

If you want to archive the folder to your computer, we recommend you copy the folder to a new named directory on your computer.

…but says not to use the stick for any other purpose:

Once formatted on the Qu mixer, use the USB device with the mixer only. Do not use it for other storage and applications.

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Oct 4, 2019 8:53 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Eau Rouge

Level 8

42,590 points

Oct 5, 2019 12:24 AM in response to Guy Burns

Well it would be interesting to see how the QU mixer has formatted the disk, on your iBook plug the stick in

and highlight it and press Command-i to get the info panel up, look in the General section.

When you plug it into your 2013 iMac do you get an error message that pops up?

Have you tried Disk Utility to format it.

Open Applications/ Utilities/ Disk Utility elect the USB disk on the right, press Erase

give the Disk a name, next to Format select MS-DOS(FAT) and next to Scheme select Master Boot Record.

click on. the Erase button, now try and see if the Audio mixer can see the newly formatted USB.

Have you contacted the Audio Mixer manufacturer to ask them if the formatting they use can be used on Mac OS X Mavericks.

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Answer 2

Eau Rouge

Level 8

42,590 points

Oct 5, 2019 2:23 AM in response to Guy Burns

Perhaps you might be able to mount it using Terminal.

On the iMac 2013 plug in the USB

Open Terminal, it is in the Applications/ Utilities folder.

Enter the text

diskutil list press return

Terminal will list all disks on or attached to the Mac

look for the usb and note it's identifier.

for example on my Mac there is a FAT32 USB attached, it is an internet dongle its Identifier is disk6s2, see below.

your USB disk will have an identifier similar but will probably have a different number,

back to Terminal and enter the text,

diskutil mount disk?s? (please exchange the ?'s for the numbers for your USB) press Return

hopefully this will mount your USB, there are no guarantees.

Try formatting a spare USB as MS-DOS FAT on A Master Boot Record as described earlier

do it on the 2013 Mac and see if your Audio mixer can see it and save it's settings to the USB.

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Answer 3

Guy Burns Author

Level 2

380 points

Oct 5, 2019 7:24 AM in response to Eau Rouge

Here's the screen shot. Disk 7 is the one. It took about a minute to appear in Disk Utility before I could do the Terminal thing.

Unless there's a hint of the problem from the above, I'll take a few sticks along next time and do some on-site tests.

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Answer 4

Guy Burns Author

Level 2

380 points

Oct 5, 2019 1:54 AM in response to Eau Rouge

Thanks for the suggestions.

On the iBook

The iBook takes about 3 seconds to recognise the disk. The USB stick has a partition scheme of Master Boot Record.

The partition is MS-Dos File System (FAT32).

When I verified the disk, it said "Volume passed verification", but I noticed that it says in the printout thing:

FAT starts with odd byte sequence (f8ffff0fffffffff)

Correct? No

Then I repaired the disk and it came back with "No repairs were necessary.

Maybe this is the problem: the creation date of the stick is 1 Jan 1980.

On the iMac

Disk Utility takes maybe a minute to recognise the disk, but it won't mount. The Partition Map Scheme is Master Boot Record, and the Partition Type is "Windows_FAT_32".

The stick can't be mounted and it can't be verified or repaired. But it can be ejected.

All in all, a strange situation.

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Answer 5

Guy Burns Author

Level 2

380 points

Oct 5, 2019 3:23 AM in response to Eau Rouge

Thanks for the suggestions.

Diskutil mount disks didn't appear to work. Not much happened.

I think your suggestion of a spare USB stick will lead to the solution. I'll format it on the iMac, take it to the mixer, and see if it is accepted.

Still strange to me that my iBook can read it, but not my iMac.

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Answer 6

Eau Rouge

Level 8

42,590 points

Oct 5, 2019 3:34 AM in response to Guy Burns

When you used the diskutil mount command in terminal did you input the correct identifier for your USB.

you can see for the screenshot above that the Identifier for my Internet dongle volume is disk6s1

so I would type in

diskutil mount disk6s1 and then press Return

Terminal should give you a response to the command

Can you try it again and maybe share a screenshot.

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Answer 7

HWTech

Level 9

59,666 points

Oct 5, 2019 6:19 PM in response to Guy Burns

Macs can be very picky about the USB sticks they use. Many USB sticks are very poor quality even from respected brand names.

I've also had problems formatting a particular USB stick on one Mac and then another identical Mac won't read the USB stick. The only difference between the two Macs is the version of macOS used. The USB stick was formatted with FAT32 each time. It didn't matter whether the newer or older macOS. I could easily read and access the USB stick from a Linux system each time.

For best results format the USB stick on the older Mac. Macs are not very forgiving if some odd block size is used in the formatting. It is possible the older OS on the iBook isn't able to read some new variation in the FAT32 format.

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USB stick (FAT32) not recognised by iMac, but is okay on 2004 iBook

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