Tiny disk usb pen drive not mounting after..
 

i plugged it into a pc the other week at uni. Printed some things off ejected it properly then plugged into my mac at home and it will not mount. Has anyone got any ideas on how to solve my little problem? Any help would be really appreciated

Scotty.

Does it show up in Disk Utility ?
Also, please post your exact OS X version.

Ah, sorry no it doesn't show up in disk utility. Tried disk warrior as well. im on mac osx 10.3.8. Again any help would be gratefully received.

What does it say about the device in Apple System Profiler?

What messages appear in your Console app (it's in /Applications/Utilities) at the same time as you plug in the USB drive?

Is the USB drive USB 1.1 or USB 2?

What Mac do you have exactly? Does it have USB 1.1 or USB 2 ports?

Trevor

@Las_Vegas: it does show up in system profiler it says

Mass Storage Device:

Vendor Name: TGE
Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
Product ID: 26240 ($6680)
Bus Power (mA): 100

@Trevor: Hi, im not sure what i'm looking for in console. I have looked for mass storage device but cant find anything, what am i looking for in here? Also its an emac 800mhz 256MB ram usb 2.

Again any help would be great, thanx for the replies so far!

Do this: launch Console. If you have either console.log or system.log showing, hit command-N to create a new window, then go to the Logs button in the button bar and select the other of those two, so that you have two logs showing: console.log and system.log.

Now click the little broom icon (the Clear button) in both logs. Then plug in your thumb drive.

If all goes successfully, you'll get a message similar to the following in your system.log:

Mar 16 12:56:12 localhost diskarbitrationd[127]: disk1s1 msdos 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 USBTHUMBDRIVE /Volumes/USBTHUMBDRIVE

If something doesn't go successfully, you'll see new messages complaining about some error. Tell us exactly what those messages are.

Trevor

Hi trevor. Well i did what you said and this is what it says

console log:
Mac OS X Version 10.3.8 (Build 7U16)
2005-03-17 17:56:04 +0000
SoftwareUpdateCheck: network unreachable
2005-03-17 17:56:10.135 SystemUIServer[230] __NSLoadSimilarFontDict(): Couldn't share font substitution list
2005-03-17 17:56:13.702 SystemUIServer[230] Normally SoundSource would not have been loaded as a Menu Extra.
2005-03-17 17:56:41.131 MagicMenuHotKeyDaemon[329] Started

system log:
Mar 17 17:55:01 localhost syslogd: restart
Mar 17 17:55:01 localhost syslogd: kernel boot file is /mach_kernel

Nothing happened when i plugged in the thumb drive. So what's next that i can try or is it looking like its broke?

Does the darn thing still work on PCs ?
Are the USB-connectors you plug it in known-good ?

Yeah thats the annoying thing it works on pc's but not on my mac! Yeah i have checked all usb plugs swapped around and stuff. It is being recognized in the system profiler but it dont show up on my desktop :( Its really annoying knowing a crappy PC has stopped it from working on my mac and i really dnt wana have to buy another one.

Something isn't adding up here. If it is visible in System Profiler, but not in Disk Utility, then it should spew error messages to the logs.

OK, do this:

Open up your Terminal. It is in /Applications/Utilities. Now, with the USB thumb drive NOT PLUGGED IN, copy/paste the following command from here to your Terminal:

ioreg | grep IOUSBDevice

You should get several lines of stuff. Don't worry about what it says yet.

Now, plug in the thumb drive. Wait 10 seconds or so, maybe 15. Now hit the up arrow once, which will get the last command entered into the Terminal, and hit Enter to repeat the same command. Or, you are welcome to copy/paste the command in to the Terminal again if you choose. You should get the same stuff as before, except (if everything is working properly), you should get a couple new lines that weren't present before. On my computer, these two lines say:

You won't get the "Cruzer Micro" part, since you have a different manufacturer of your thumb drive, but you should in theory get something like this. Do you? Can you copy the _NEW_ material here for us to look at?

Trevor

hi this is what i got

+-o USB-ADSL Modem@18200000 <class IOUSBDevice, registered, matc$
| | +-o Apple Extended USB Keyboard@19110000 <class IOUSBDevice, reg$
| | +-o Apple Optical USB Mouse@19120000 <class IOUSBDevice, registe$
| | +-o Mass Storage Device@19130000 <class IOUSBDevice, registered,$

Can you widen your Terminal window a lot so that the right side doesn't get cut off? Then, I just need the Mass Storage Device, not the modem, keyboard, or mouse.

Thanks.

Trevor

Sorry mate, there you go the full line:

Mass Storage Device@19130000 <class IOUSBDevice, registered, matched, active, busy 0, retain count 9>

OK, the device is completely recognized by the computer. Maybe it's a driver problem? Did the manufacturer give you a driver CD?

Trevor

Yeah it did come with a cd but it was only for windows drivers nothing on the cd was to do with mac osx.

So will i have to buy another one then? Its looking more likely :(

Well, it appears that his particular thumb drive is not class compliant. What that means is that it doesn't conform to the class driver for usb storage devices, so the built in class driver in OS X cannot, well, drive it. You would need a driver specific to the device. The manufacturer provides such a driver for Windows, but may not for Macs. I'd definitely check their website for Mac drivers, though.

Why they don't just make the device class compliant is beyond me. Was it supposed to have some special feature? Like it encrypts its contents or something? Or does the manufacturer just prefer extra work?

Trevor

Like trevor said, something is really not matching reality as we know it:

- rarely automount gets confused after a lot of volumes have been mounted and unmounted. Reboot your Mac just to be sure.

- plug in the device directly into your Mac and don't connect anything USB other than keyboard and mouse

- check that ioreg/systemprofiler can see it

- then launch disk utility and have a thourough look whether it really doesn't show up there

- also report if you get a dialog roughly saying "there's a volume I can't make any sense of, what shall I do with it" with three options after you insert the drive.

@Trevor: There was no special features about the device just a normal thumb drive. I have searched for the maker of the drive but I can't find a thing about them. There is nothing on the packaging it came with about the company and I have searched google. All i know is its called Tiny disk.

@voldenuit: I tried all the things you suggested and still nothing although it is still being recognized in system profiler. No messages appered either when i plug it in :confused:

....a last ditch suggestion...

Perhaps reformatting (from the PC, of course) as FAT32 might put everything back to 'stock' and then it might mount from the Mac (again).

Pen Drive Problem
 

Scot I have had similar problems - use a pen drive in a PC and it does not show up on the desktop.

I have not managed a permanent fix, but I have always manged to get it to mount somehow. Try opening Volumes from terminal; this can force it to mount. Have a look at disk utility again - the pen drive may not show at the first attempt.

Does your pen drive have partitions? The one I use has a 1.44MB partition that does not show when used on a pc, but mounts on the mac desktop. I now know to always eject this first.

Finally, use safe eject on the pc. I know nobody but nobody uses this - except me as it does reduce the chance of a problem.

@macmath: Yeah some one at my uni suggested this. I mite try it and see if it works, no harm in trying hey.

@Doug955: I think some of the pen drive is partitioned for the PC drivers. Can i ask what the command is in terminal to open volumes and force mount it? And if i get it working again I'm not going to use it on a PC ever again!

Terminal Command
 

Scot I have used two approaches:

First: in terminal type cd /volumes Then type ls Hopefully your pen drive will be listed; if so you can type open xxxx (name of the volume).

Second approach (if above does not work): in terminal type cd / Then type open volumes

No guarantees, all you are trying to do is force the system to open a folder containing your drive's contents, or a folder containing your drive.

I have just checked the formatting of my pen drive and it is FAT16. Whether this is a cause I do not know.

How old is the device and what capacity does it have ?

its 128MB and its about 1 year old.

Hi, i tried this and it said volume not recognized. Maybe its because i'm not typing in the wrong volume name. How do i get the exact name of the pen drive, i looked in system profiler and tried the name from there but no luck.

Hello there! Forum newbie here, found this forum after a google search trying to resolve a problem with an mp3/thumbdrive I'd bought my dad.
It's not liking his Mac Mini!

Here's what I get from System profiler..

...and here's what I get from the console, thanks the the info a few posts up.

It's an Aigo A208 1Gb MP3/mass storage thumbdrive thing, works fine on a pc, website says it works fine with Mac OSX without a driver. A smaller similar device of same type works fine.