Hi there.
Whenever I use the USB drive on my iMac, I find the data is corrupted. How can I fix this?
The system specs are as follows:
*Mac OS X [10.7.5]
*Processor: 28 GHz Intel Core i7
*Built-in USB
*Host Controller driver: AppleUSBEHCI
I would appreciate any useful advice on what to do to resolve this.
Thank you!
Lauren
Macs don't have USB drives, they have USB ports that you plug in USB devices such as flash drives, external HD's, etc.. Please describe the type of device you are having trouble with and please describe in detail what you mean when you say the data is corrupted.
Thank you for your reply.
Yes, I mean the USB ports that are built into the iMac. Here is a scenario:
*I insert any flash drive into one of the USB ports on my iMac (whether it has data on it or not).
*I copy data from that flash drive to the iMac or copy data onto that flash drive from the iMac.
*I eject the flash drive from the iMac and insert it into any other USB port on another Mac (iMac or MacBook)
*When I open the contents of the Flash drive, the contents are all strange charaters. Can't read them, can't delete the contents either.
Does that help? If You have any other questions, please let me know.
Thank you.
Lauren
Have you tried reformatting the flash drive to OS X Extended (journaled) with Disk Utility and then try another file transfer?
OT is correct, if you don't know how to format the flash drive, there are a number of youtube videos that explain how. Navigate to youtube.com and type in
OS X Format Flash drive
I have not but wouldn't that wipe the data from the flash drive? It would really like to be able to solve the issue of when the built in USB ports cause this to happen. I have run a repair permissions in Disk Utility on th emachine itself but no luck.
Thank you for your reply!
Lauren
But why is this happening in the first place? If formatting my flash drive saves my data AFTER it gets corrupted, great but I doubt it. Why is this happening in the first place? How can i stop it? Maybe going forward I need to format every flash drive I use on that computer before I use it? I don't need to do this using other Macs but only on this one?
Thanks.
Lauren
Formatting the drive will not save the data on the drive, it will erase it.
What is the current format of this drive? (to find out plug the drive in, click once on the drive icon and select Get Info). Format is in the top section.
Hi there.
The current format of one of the flash drives that has corrupted data is MS-DOS (FAT 16). Is that the issue? Can we just not use this kind of formatted drive?
Thank you.
Lauren
MS-Dos (FAT 16) was designed for use with PCs. if you intend to use the drive with only Macs then simply reformat (you will lose existing data on the flash drive) to Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
It's a compatible format for a Mac, the question is why is yours failing.
If you have copies of the files then throw the drive away and buy a new one, post back if you don't have copies.
Fat16 is not PC specific, whether the format is Fat32 or Fat16 depends on the drive size. Fat16 works as well as Fat32 does (with greater restrictions on maximum size limits)
It should make no difference, but I would throw the drive away and invest 10 more dollars in a new one.
Thank you. So maybe this is just a case of bad flash drives? I have other drives I can use but what makes me nervous is if I receive a drive that has data which only exists on the flash drive, then I place it in this iMac, I will lose my data. I guess that is not good practice anyway to only house data on a flash drive but I haven't had this issue before.
It may not only be isolated to flash drives. What if I plug in an external HD which happens to be a back up of old projects I am worked on? I have been afraid to try that scenario. There must be something going on with the iMac or the USB ports. But what....
Do this.
Erase that drive and reformat it, choose MSDOS (Fat32). You'll actually get Fat16 if this a small USB drive (1GB or less). Then copy some files to it and see if they are readable.
Hi! I did what you asked and the files were fine...this time. I am concerned abou the times when we have a USB or an an external HD wil files we need to access. We plug it in and then the files have issues. This has happend to us in the past on this machine. Sounds liek to be safe, we need to not use the USB ports on this machine otherwise we are playing Russian Roulette. A crime since this machine is just two years old this month....
Why do you think it's the ports (about as unlikely as you can get) especially as you formatted the drive and then copied files, which are not corrupted.
Some times I just don't understand?
Issue with iMac USB drive
