I am curently trying to reformat an old usb stick. But stuggling to get it working. I've included pictures below of the info page. When I go to disk utility all options are grayed out on this disk. After looking at terminal I belive the permitions for the disk are actually for 'staff'. Any and all help would be much appreciated! Thank you!
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
Check to see if there's a physical switch on the drive or if it's mounted read-only(run mount -uw on the drive).
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Check to see if there's a physical switch on the drive or if it's mounted read-only(run mount -uw on the drive).
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Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to MBR then click on the OK button. Set the format type to MSDOS (FAT32) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
There is no physical switch and recive a Permision Denied from terminal when I try that command, after useing admin password. Thank you for your help.
Hi. All option in DU for this drive are blanked out. It's the same for every option.
Thanks!
Select the drive on your Desktop. Press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. Report what is seen for the Ownership and Sharing panel at the bottom. Sort of like this, if you can:
All of that information is present in the first screenshot Oliver posted.
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No, it's not.
Yes, it is. At the very bottom, it says 'Sharing & Permissions' with a downward triangle and the words 'You can only read' below it. There's nothing else. No owner and group settings and no configuration options.
I wouldn't expect a FAT32 drive to have any such options anyway, even if it's working normally. FAT32 is simple.
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Hi,
Niel is right. All the information avalible to me on get info is posted on first post. Really wish it was that simple though! I'm starting to think there isn't a soloution.
Thanks.
Don't suppose it makes any difference trying to format it from Disk Utility in Recovery mode, does it? Or with, horror of horrors, a Windows machine.
Hi John, Thanks for the sugestion! Sadly Recovery mode still displays the grayed out options and I don't currently have a Windows machine at hand to try it out on. Although I hope that a windows machine would be no easier than a mac! đ
Can you run a Verify Disk in Disk Utility? I have a feeling that OS X might mount disks as read-only if there are file system errors. Obviously, you won't be able to run a Repair, but it might show up something that will explain the problem.
Hi John, I am able to verify the "partition" on the drive. At these are the results. Thank you for the help!
Verifying volume âNO NAMEâ
Checking file system** /dev/disk2s1
** Phase 1 - Preparing FAT
** Phase 2 - Checking Directories
size of /.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/DC04D0AC-DE8D-40F2-AB7F-F72FDF1E1F90/tmp.merge .0.indexDirectory is 8224, should at most be 4096
Truncate? no
** Phase 3 - Checking for Orphan Clusters
Found orphan cluster(s)
Fix? no
Found 2 orphaned clusters
Free space in FSInfo block (1952306) not correct (1952218)
Fix? no
128 files, 7808872 KiB free (1952218 clusters)
Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.
Right. It seems as though the USB stick needs to be scanned before it will mount as read/write. Ironically, unless anyone else has any other ideas, I think you're going to need Windows to put the stick right.
You could boot your Mac using Hiren's Boot CD - it will work on a Mac too. There's an option on there named "Mini Windows XP" which will work perfectly for what you need. Strictly speaking, you shouldn't use that option unless you have a Windows licence of some kind.
Hi. Thanks for the Hiren Boot CD suggestion. Not heard of that before. Although I am still struggling with what to do on windows. Not overly familiar and I am still coming up with read only errors. Thanks
Reformatting read only FAT32 USB Stick
