Level 1

41 points

SD Cards formatted in FAT32 mount in macOS 15 (Sequoia) as "NO NAME"

Anyone else noticing this since moving to macOS Sequoia?

Recently installed Sequoia 15.6.x from macOS Sonoma.

SD Cards that have a Volume Label under the 8 character limit, formatted in FAT32 always mount as "NO NAME".

However when the same SD Card is formatted as ExFAT - it mounts intact with volume label also correct.

I have tried formatting with official "SD Card Formatter" (both "Quick" and "Overwrite" formatting), formatting in Disk Utility and Terminal. All SD Cards are SanDisk 32GB Extreme Pro (300Mb/s) - but it presents the same issue when formatting a standard USB flash drive, so surely it's a bug with the diskutil backend?

Disk Utility reports no issues with the card, and no directory damage.

Running maOS 15.6.1, iMac 27-inch (intel), 64GB RAM.

Posted on Sep 9, 2025 12:07 AM

24 replies

oz-macnut Author

Level 1

41 points

Sep 10, 2025 10:22 PM in response to HWTech

Thanks HWTech. All valid points and I always format the drive using the physical designation rather than the logical volume. (I.e - disk4 rather than disk4s1)

I don’t use disk utility normally to format flash media (especially these SD cards) as Presonus recommends using SD Card Formatter to throughly overwrite the entire volume (same as your suggestion in Disk Utility).

The volume name issue has not been prevalent until I migrated to macOS 15.6.1 Sequoia. I format these cards every week - the only change is macOS update. The cards only failed to write data if I used Disk Utility, so I stuck with the recommended and stable app.

steve626

Level 6

17,363 points

Sep 13, 2025 11:06 AM in response to oz-macnut

I am sorry, I tried with FAT32 and FAT16 on some jump drives but cannot reproduce this issue. When I rename the drives on a Sequoia Mac they stay with the new name after ejecting and remounting. I am wondering if there is something in your setup or maybe the way you are formatting your drives that is causing this?

oz-macnut Author

Level 1

41 points

Sep 14, 2025 3:00 PM in response to Matti Haveri

Safe Boot is something I do frequently, but I prefer the more comfortable option of using Onyx to clear caches and other deeper options (like local snapshots, fonts and print caches, indexes etc). I’ll give safe boot a shot. Thanks.

oz-macnut Author

Level 1

41 points

Sep 9, 2025 3:06 PM in response to tbirdvet

Does it stay when you eject the card and remount it? Do you have the card format as FAT32 or ExFAT?

MrHoffman

Level 10

161,517 points

Sep 10, 2025 10:34 PM in response to oz-macnut

Look in the boot parameter block (BPB):

https://academy.cba.mit.edu/classes/networking_communications/SD/FAT.pdf

See if it’s what you expect.

Appendix 2 is an example.

oz-macnut Author

Level 1

41 points

Sep 11, 2025 1:07 AM in response to MrHoffman

Thanks for that resource MrHoffman. How is it best to check the BPB on the volume with specific tools? Is there a Terminal command that will show that byte blocks?

Can someone reproduce my issue?

tbirdvet

Level 6

17,793 points

Sep 13, 2025 7:42 AM in response to damian_2287

No issue for me. After renaming the name does not change when I remount the disk.

oz-macnut Author

Level 1

41 points

Sep 14, 2025 3:02 PM in response to markwmsn

I will add that to the collection of options to test! Thanks markwmsn

oz-macnut Author

Level 1

41 points

Sep 14, 2025 3:58 PM in response to oz-macnut

Safe Boot - no change. Volume name will show up if mounted during boot. Eject volume and remount - NO NAME"

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SD Cards formatted in FAT32 mount in macOS 15 (Sequoia) as "NO NAME"