USB drives not showing in finder

Im having also the issue they dont show in the sidebar. Though my disk do show in Disk Utility and if i got to the top root of the system in the finder i also see them. They also show like normal on the desktop. Its just that they dont show in the sidebar and in "Favorite Volumes" i added to the Dock. Most of the times a restart helps and i think its has something to do with my setup at home. When i have the USB connect before startup it happens. But not always.

Ive got 3 USB connect through a USB 3 hub, 2 are powered by Mac and one is self powered.

I was having the same problem with the same Lexar JumpDrive P20 Pro 128GB. Turns out, plugging it in to a powered USB hub immediately solved the problem! I suspected my laptop wasn't putting out enough power across its built-in USB hubs and this proves it.

Hey fane_j!

Was helping out a friend with this issue and creating the new admin account resolved it! Do you know what this course of action actually served to do? Just curious on how creating a new user could reset some of the settings. I found the issue especially peculiar because he had just created his new user 3 days ago.

Anyways, thanks for your clear solutions!

I also am having this problem. The flash drive isn't showing up in Finder window. It does show in Disk Utility. I've tried multiple brands of flash drives. I have a MacBook Pro 10.6.8. This is only happening with flash drives. My printer, phone, and camera USBs do show up.

Snap4u wrote:

I have tried a number of different brand USB drives but none show in finder.

Finder > Preferences > General > Show these items on the desktop

Is "External disks" checked?

Finder > Preferences > Sidebar > DEVICES

Is "External disks" checked?

What MacBook?

Are you connecting directly to the MBP, or through a hub?

Do they show in Disk Utility?

Are these drives low capacity thumb drives (eg, 4GB) or high capacity (eg, 500GB)?

Do they show in Disk Utility?

Are you using a USB powered drive? In other words the USB drive does not have a external AC power adapter?

This is a ongoing problem. Some, really most, notebooks, whether Mac or PC, do not put out enough power on the USB ports to power these type of drives. Some work but some, most, don't.

You can buy a USB Y cable that connects to 2 USB ports at the same time giving the drive more power.

Other then that if the drive is listed in Disk Utility you may need to partition and format it before the drive will show in Finder.

But to my knowledge most of these external drive come formatted in one way or another so that any operating system, Mac or Windows, can see them as soon as they are connected.

Do they show in Disk Utility, or not?

So they show up in System Profiler, but not in Disk Utility.

Post the info on one of them from System Profiler. For instance, if I attach a SanDisk Cruzer through a hub, I get something like this

USB2.0 Hub:

Product ID: 0x0608

Vendor ID: 0x05e3 (Genesys Logic, Inc.)

Version: 77.64

Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec

Location ID: 0xfd120000 / 4

Current Available (mA): 500

Current Required (mA): 100

Cruzer Edge:

Product ID: 0x556b

Vendor ID: 0x0781 (SanDisk Corporation)

Version: 1.03

Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec

Manufacturer: SanDisk

Location ID: 0xfd121000 / 8

Current Available (mA): 500

Current Required (mA): 200

(But delete the serial number, if any, or anything else of that kind.)