MacBook Pro not recognizing some flash drives

Question

Level 1

5 points

MacBook Pro not recognizing some flash drives

I have several MacBook Pro's and I'm finding that my older ones running High Sierra have no issue with any USB flash drive I've tried, but both of my new ones running Monterey will NOT see 8GB thumb drives created in an older MacBook but they WILL see 32GB thumb drives. All of these drives were created in the same older MacBook Pro, all are formatted ExFat. 32GB drives are recognized by all my machines, the 8GB ones are ONLY recognized by the older machines... and the Windows machines as well.

What's going on here, is there a bug in Monterey that obsoletes smaller flash drives yet works fine with larger ones? I stress that ALL flash drives are formatted identically with ExFat in the same older Mac. Neither my M1 MacBook nor my i9 MacBook will read the smaller drives.

Since I distribute videos on flash drives it's essential that they work on the client's machines. Currently I'm forced to provide everything on a 32GB drive regardless of file size. Given the price difference between 8GB and 32GB this is an issue; plus I have hundreds of smaller drives in inventory.

Posted on May 19, 2022 2:08 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

leroydouglas

Community+ 2024

Level 10

188,712 points

May 20, 2022 9:38 AM in response to Seehorse

Seehorse wrote:

I have several MacBook Pro's and I'm finding that my older ones running High Sierra have no issue with any USB flash drive I've tried, but both of my new ones running Monterey will NOT see 8GB thumb drives created in an older MacBook but they WILL see 32GB thumb drives.

All of these drives were created in the same older MacBook Pro, all are formatted ExFat. 32GB drives are recognized by all my machines, the 8GB ones are ONLY recognized by the older machines... and the Windows machines as well.

What's going on here, is there a bug in Monterey

Yes there are some known issues here on the new Macs... age of the drives, brand of the drives, format of the drives, wear of the drives, all these variables can have an effect...

USBC external drives seem to work best with the new Macs

I would simply do/use what works for you—

if you want to drill down on it issue—

Call Customer Support (800) MY–APPLE (800–692–7753)

or on line Apple Support

You can you can submit your Apple Feedback/file a bug report of your own: Product Feedback - Apple

Reply

Answer 2

Seehorse Author

Level 1

5 points

May 20, 2022 11:13 AM in response to leroydouglas

Well, all the drives are from our stock and are the same apart from capacity, and all are formatted exfat in 2013-2015 MacBook Pro's running High Sierra. We buy them in bulk printed with our logo.

We keep a stock of 8GB, 16GB and 32GB flash drives for project distribution and so far none of the 8GB will work in the new MacBook Pro's running Monterey, but all of the 16 & 32 work fine. It's frustrating dealing with this since we've a fair stock of 8GB drives I don't dare use if the client might not be able to read them.

Reply

MacBook Pro not recognizing some flash drives

Similar questions