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    USB thumb drives don't work

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by leaftye, Nov 23, 2008.

  1. leaftye

    leaftye Notebook Consultant

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    xxxxxxxxxxxx
     
    leaftye, Nov 23, 2008
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  2. Charr

    Charr Notebook Deity

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    Is it the formatting (NTFS vs. HFS+)?
     
    Charr, Nov 23, 2008
    #2
  3. Chris27

    Chris27 Notebook Deity

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    Even if the thumb drive was formatted to NTFS, OSX will still mount the drive as it can read NTFS (but not write). Typically thumb drives are formatted FAT32 anyway. I haven't come across a thumb drive that hasn't worked with my MBP. I don't think power is an issue as thumb drives hardly consume any power and both of the USB ports on my laptop can run a 2.5" HDD which uses much more power in comparison.
     
    Chris27, Nov 23, 2008
    #3
  4. Sam

    Sam Notebook Virtuoso

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    Yeah, I'm surprised to hear this, the flash drive should be recognized no matter what. And Chris27 is correct, Mac OS X can read but not write to NTFS so it should still be able to see it.

    Are these drives boutique brands? Or are they general brands like Kingston and SanDisk?
     
    Sam, Nov 23, 2008
    #4
  5. kthung

    kthung Notebook Guru

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    I've never had problems with thumb drives from kingston or sandisk. Even if they are formatted as NTFS I can write to them with NTFS-3G
     
    kthung, Nov 23, 2008
    #5
  6. talin

    talin Notebook Prophet

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    Is it a licensing issue? Because when I used ubuntu, I had no problem writing to the windows partition at all.
     
    talin, Nov 24, 2008
    #6