USB Flash Drive Not Mounting After Mavericks Update

Question

Level 1

7 points

USB Flash Drive Not Mounting After Mavericks Update

Has anyone else encountered a problem with their USB thumb drive not mounting after Mavericks update? I've got a 16GB Silicon Power USB 3.0 Flash Drive that mounted fine in Mountain Lion prior to my Mavericks upgrade on Tuesday. However, after the update, it will not mount. Now my MBP does not have USB 3.0 but this thumb drive was backwards compatible with 2.0.

I'd appreciate any suggestions as to how to address this problem. A cursory Google search for this problem turned up no results as of early morning on Thursday, 10/24.

Cheers,

CJ

MacBook Pro (17-inch 2.4 GHz), OS X Mavericks (10.9), 2.4GHz; 4GB DDR2 SDRAM; 160GB HD

Posted on Oct 24, 2013 4:50 AM

Reply

Answer 1

norm123

Community Specialist

Oct 26, 2013 8:31 AM in response to ZenGentleman

Hello ZenGentleman

If you are having issues with troubleshooting with your USB flash drive not mounting, check in disk utility to see if it shows up there. You may see that it shows up, just not mounted. You can select the drive and click mount or verify the disk to ensure that their are no issues with it.

Disk Utility 12.x: Verify a disk

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5864

Regards,

-Norm G.

Reply

Answer 2

ZenGentleman Author

Level 1

7 points

Oct 26, 2013 3:06 PM in response to norm123

Hi Norm,

Thanks for your reply. I did indeed launch Disk Utility but it did not show up as a mounted disk in there either. I did hear back from Silicon Power, the manufacturer, who essentially told me there was nothing they could do or recommend to fix the issue. At this point, I'm resigned that there seems to be no fix. Perhaps it was a faulty thumb drive to begin with and this is just a coincidence, as I have not seen anyone else post about this particular issue after updating to Mavericks. I'll just have to buy a new thumb drive and hope that it works.

Best,

Chris

Reply

Answer 3

Oct 27, 2013 7:11 PM in response to ZenGentleman

i have the same issue with an xtenal WD passport USB3 drive. it works fine in my windows pc and does not mount on my brand new macbookpro 2013 with maverick. does not show up in finder or disk utility

Reply

Answer 4

ZenGentleman Author

Level 1

7 points

Oct 27, 2013 7:21 PM in response to jabbaworks

Interesting, Jabba. I have the FW800 version of the WD My Studio Passport HD and it works fine, post update. Perhaps this is specifically a Mavericks/USB issue. I have access to a WD Passport 2TB USB 3.0 HD which I'm going to borrow and see if it will mount.

Reply

Answer 5

Oct 27, 2013 7:35 PM in response to ZenGentleman

it mounts fine on my macbook air with maverick, my time capsule and my windows pc (running macdrive). its an issue of usb/maverick and macbook pro. im talking to support right now.

Reply

Answer 6

ZenGentleman Author

Level 1

7 points

Oct 27, 2013 7:38 PM in response to jabbaworks

Great. Let me know if they provide a solution. I'd love to be able to continue using my thumb drive. I've just been out of AppleCare for over 2 years.

Reply

Answer 7

Imp68

Level 4

2,672 points

Oct 27, 2013 7:44 PM in response to ZenGentleman

New operating systems come with phone support. You can call them if you need support.

http://www.apple.com/ca/support/complimentary/

Reply

Answer 8

Oct 27, 2013 7:48 PM in response to Imp68

i know thats what im doing right now. is the thumbdrive you are using usb3?

Reply

Answer 9

ZenGentleman Author

Level 1

7 points

Oct 27, 2013 7:52 PM in response to jabbaworks

My flash drive that will no longer mount is USB 3.0. However, the ports on my 2007 MBP are USB 2.0. The drive worked fine up until Mavericks upgrade.

Reply

Answer 10

Nov 13, 2013 10:43 AM in response to ZenGentleman

I've had similiar issues as well on my 2011 MacBook Pro with a Kingston Flash Drive (DataTraveler SE9 16GB) with USB 2.0. It behaves very erratically sometime mounting, other times mounting but not accessible. It does show up in Disk Utilies. that I actually sent the drive back to Amazon just in case, even though it worked fine on all my Macs not running Mavericks. I hope an update takes care of this.

Reply

Answer 11

Nov 25, 2013 8:12 AM in response to norm123

Hi norm123,

I think there is a real issue with FAT32 and Mavericks. I'm running a 2.3GHz MBP, Mid 2012 on OS 10.9. We have a couple of thousand promotional USB 4Gb thumb drives that we are giving out to prospective students and they are pre-formatted to FAT32 and have information PDF's installed. The drives work fine on a windows PC but I can not get them to load onto my MBP. This is a BIG worry.

I have not been able to test the USB drives on an older OS yet but surely they should be able to load into Mavericks.

I have tried using Disk Utility but the USB drives do not register. I even looked on the USB device tree and no show there either.

This really needs to be looked at.

Gavin

Reply

Answer 12

Nov 25, 2013 9:13 AM in response to ZenGentleman

I'm having the same problem and reported it here https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5595775?answerId=23912334022#23912334022

(I wasn't aware of this thread!)

If you use the Terminal and type 'cd /Volumes' (without the quotes) followed by 'ls' and don't see your USB key, then it's not being mounted.

I don't know why, but unplugging and replugging the USB key gets it mounted on my computer!

Reply

Answer 13

Ameen K.

Level 1

0 points

Nov 27, 2013 11:17 PM in response to ZenGentleman

I'm having the same problem. I just got a Corsair Voyager Mini USB 3.0 drive and works perfectly on a PC and even shows up on my mac in Parallels virtural machine running Windows 8.1. But it does not show on disk utility no matter what I try to do. I've formatted it to exFat, FAT32, and NTFS. (BTW I have paragon's NTFS preference to read NTFS on my mac)

What the heck is going on?!

Reply

Answer 14

Dec 8, 2013 1:57 PM in response to ZenGentleman

My Transcend information store jet usb 3.0 does not mount after Mavericks upgrade. Nothing in disc utility. What did they do?

Reply

Answer 15

chuck 33

Level 1

0 points

Dec 15, 2013 8:43 PM in response to ZenGentleman

Hello, I am having the same trouble after upgrading to Mavericks on my MBP. SanDisk Cruzers will no longer mount properly. They were formatted with Disk Utility prior to upgrade. Anyonle else having any luck?

Reply