FAT32 USB Thumb drives not recognized

Question

Level 1

11 points

FAT32 USB Thumb drives not recognized

I have several FAT32 thumb drives I've been using to backup business and personal files. These drives worked fine on Sierra but since upgrading to High Sierra they are not recognized/doesn't mount. "<Drive name> can’t be opened because the original item can’t be found." displays when trying to access the thumb drive in Finder. Is this a known bug or do I need a special app now to read and write USB FAT32 drives?

Thanks!

MacBook Pro TouchBar and Touch ID, macOS High Sierra (10.13.1)

Posted on Nov 10, 2017 11:07 AM

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Answer 1

jeremy_v

Community Specialist

Nov 12, 2017 3:09 PM in response to bookgatherer

Hi bookgatherer,
Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities. If you are having issues mounting these USB thumb drives in Finder since upgrading to High Sierra, you may want to see if they are recognized and can be verified/repaired in Disk Utility. You may find the following article helpful:
Using Disk Utility to verify or repair disks - Apple Support
Regards.

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Answer 2

tbirdvet

Level 6

17,090 points

Dec 3, 2017 5:20 AM in response to bookgatherer

I believe HS has some issues. I have 2 flash thumb drives (same make but different sizes). One is recognized no issue. The other not. I had to go to disk utilities and reformat to Dos Fat32 for it to work. Not sure why. Both worked fine prior to updating to HS. I'm just glad I didn't have any important files that needed saving.

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Answer 3

Dec 3, 2017 2:50 AM in response to GleeSC

Check your Finder preferences are set to show external drives:-

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Answer 4

bookgatherer Author

Level 1

11 points

Nov 13, 2017 11:13 AM in response to jeremy_v

Hello Jeremy,

Thank you for your help.

This issue is confusing. I just plugged in a FAT32 thumb drive and it was recognized and usable. I ran Disk Utility first aid on it and it passed. Then I plugged in another and it worked fine and passed first aid as well and I could copy several files to it without error. But... I haven't applied any updates to macOS so why do the drives work now when they did not before?

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Answer 5

GleeSC

Level 1

4 points

Dec 2, 2017 10:20 AM in response to jeremy_v

I am seeing the same problem where FAT32 Thumb drives which have always worked on my Mac Pro now cannot be seen by Finder under 10.13.1.
If I plug the thumb drive in, Finder never sees the drive.
Yet if I go to Disk Utility, the drive is mounted properly, and First Aid does not report any issues on it.

If I go to “About this Mac” and nav to the Storage tab, it sees the thumb drive, but does not accurately report on the storage and available storage.

Despite the success book gatherer had on reboots, this has not cleared this problem for me.
Mounting a FAT32 USB thumb drive never causes Finder to see the drive.

Is this a bug in the latest version of High Sierra?
From what I’ve read, FAT32 is still supported right?
Have to have a way to move thumb drives between different macOS versions as well as non-mac machines. Thanks

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Answer 6

GleeSC

Level 1

4 points

Dec 3, 2017 5:19 AM in response to ttreen1950

Thanks. This is set properly. So it does not appear this is the issue.

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