does not recognise usb flashdrive

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does not recognise usb flashdrive

I have an early 2015 MacBook pro. It no longer recognizes my mini Lexar 32G flash drive. The drive works fine on a Windows 10 laptop. Any suggestions why this happened suddenly and how I can get it to work again?

Posted on Jun 12, 2021 5:47 AM

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Answer 1

randel114 Author

Level 1

15 points

Jun 12, 2021 6:33 AM in response to Limnos

Thanks for replying. I have tried a different port and restarting. It does appear in disk utility however it will not load in Finder. After awhile it ejects itself and I get the error message that it did not eject properly. I get the same issue on my iMac. It works fine on a windows 10 laptop.

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Answer 2

randel114 Author

Level 1

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Jun 13, 2021 4:42 AM in response to Limnos

According to Disk Utility the format is MS-DOS FAT32. I have had the drive for about 4 years and have never had a problem. I have 10G of data stored on it. Yesterday I was able to see the contents in finder for the first time since it started acting up. However, I could not open any of the files.

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Answer 3

HWTech

Level 9

63,572 points

Jun 13, 2021 8:18 PM in response to randel114

Chances are the USB stick is failing. Windows is a lot more forgiving when there are issues.

Try erasing the whole physical USB stick in order to create a new partition table in addition to a new file system.

The quality of USB sticks is not that great so it would not surprise me that a USB stick could be failing or it may just have bit errors.

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Answer 4

randel114 Author

Level 1

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Jun 14, 2021 12:30 PM in response to Limnos

I was able to get my data from it using the Windows laptop. I think the drive is toast. Memory is cheap. I'll just get another one. Thanks for taking the time to help me out.

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Answer 5

Limnos

Level 10

421,807 points

Jun 12, 2021 6:09 AM in response to randel114

Tried a different USB port?

Does it appear at all in Disk Utility?

Tried restarting the computer?

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Answer 6

Limnos

Level 10

421,807 points

Jun 12, 2021 11:44 AM in response to randel114

What format is reported in Disk Utility? Only Fat or Exfat will work on both Macs and PCs. if it is Windows NTFS then Macs require special software.

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Answer 7

Limnos

Level 10

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Jun 13, 2021 5:46 AM in response to randel114

It sounds like something sporadic is wrong. I have never seen anybody report this kind of thing and I really don't think it is a macOS issue. Did you try a different port?

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Answer 8

Limnos

Level 10

421,807 points

Jun 14, 2021 12:36 PM in response to randel114

You're welcome!

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