copy from one flash drive to another

Question

Henry R Author

Level 1

14 points

copy from one flash drive to another

Hope this is the right forum. If not, please redirect me.

I have an IMac and the Yosemite OS.

I have 2 SanDisk Cruzer flash drives. Each has thousands of songs on it.

I will call them flashdrive A and flashdrive B.

I want to do 2 things:

1) delete all the songs on flashdrive A.

2) copy all the songs from flashdrive B onto flashdrive A.

I do not want to delete any of the songs on flashdrive B, just copy them to

flashdrive A. Then I will have all my songs on both flashdrives.

Posted on May 2, 2015 11:46 AM

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Answer 1

petermac87

Level 5

7,453 points

May 2, 2015 8:57 PM in response to Henry R

edit - Yes you will need both drives plugged in at once, or otherwise you can copy all the songs from Drive A to a new folder on your desktop and then trash all content from drive A before plugging in drive B and copying them from the new desktop folder.

Otherwise

1. Plug in drive A

2. Drag all songs to Trash.

3. Empty Trash

4. Plug in drive B and leave drive A attached

5. open drive B and drag all songs to drive A

When completed, eject both

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Answer 2

Niel

Community+ 2025

Level 10

741,095 points

May 2, 2015 11:51 AM in response to Henry R

Throw the tracks away from A, empty the Trash, and then copy them from B to A.

(126976)

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Answer 3

K Shaffer

Level 8

35,956 points

May 2, 2015 11:53 AM in response to Henry R

Be sure to use Disk Utility to erase the first flash drive, and do not have

the second flash drive plugged into the Mac at that time. You should be

able to see the flash drive you want to erase in Disk Utility and choose

to use options there to erase it. You could choose to reformat it, too, as

that would do more than remove images, but any saved folders, etc too.

After the first flash drive is erased, then plug in the one with images on it.

Then it should be a matter of drag & drop from one drive icon to the other.

Good luck! 🙂

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Answer 4

Henry R Author

Level 1

14 points

May 2, 2015 8:53 PM in response to Henry R

Also, after the first flashdrive's contents are removed. I then put in the second flash drive and then drag and drop from

the second flash drive to the first. That means I need both flash drives plugged into my IMac at the same time. Correct?

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Answer 5

Henry R Author

Level 1

14 points

May 2, 2015 9:54 PM in response to petermac87

I will try to plug in both flash drives at the same time. (Not much room to do this, so most likely will have to disconnect my

keyboard cable to do this.)

If I can't plug in both flash drives at the same time, I think I will have to:

1) Plug in flash drive A and delete all the song files in flashdrive A.

2) create a new folder on my desktop, as you mentioned. (Is this a document folder or what type folder?)

(The folder will have to be able to hold my song files - I think most are mp3 song files but I am not certain)

3) remove flashdrive A

4) plug in flashdrive B (the flashdrive with all my songs).

5) copy (drag) songs from flashdrive B to the new desktop folder. (without deleting the songs from flashdrive B).

6) remove flashdrive B

7) plug in flashdrive A.

8) copy (drag) songs from desktop folder to flashdrive A.

9) remove flashdrive A.

10) delete desktop folder.

Now both flashdrives have all the current songs.

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Answer 6

Henry R Author

Level 1

14 points

May 2, 2015 8:50 PM in response to K Shaffer

Could you go into detail, step by step, showing each step, on how to use disk utility to do this?

I'm afraid I might mess it up. Thanks

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Answer 7

petermac87

Level 5

7,453 points

May 2, 2015 9:59 PM in response to Henry R

Sorry I got confused there. Just make a new folder from the Finder menu and drag the songs there.

the rest of your steps are all good.

Pete

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