help, Mac OS X can't read my flash drive

[cherryb]

i have a TwinMOS Mobile Disk III, USB 2.0 (128MB). i bought it a few months ago. it's supposed to be plug-n-play with Mac OS 8++. it used to work fine with my ibook G4 (on panther) until today. when i plug it in now, i get the following message:

"You have inserted a disk containing no volumes that Mac OS X can read. To continue with the disk inserted, click ignore."

and it gives me three buttons to press "initialize" "ignore" and "eject"

what does that mean? when i press ignore, nothing happens. it's as if my ibook can't even tell it's plugged in. should i press "initialize"? the drive works in the pc at the office so i'm guessing it's not sira.

help!:wound:

[joel]

This has happened to me several times. In one occasion, I just tried re-inserting my Thumbdrive and OS X was able to read it. But in most cases, everything was really erased.

I believe the culprit is static electricity. You won't believe how much builds up in us just by standing up and rubbing our pants on our chair and by walking across a carpeted floor. After this kind of activity, built-up static is discharged whenever we touch another object. This can then lead to damaged devices.

How do we prevent potential damage from happening? Just touch any object before handling any device.

[cherryb]

thanks, joel! so your data were erased but you can still use the thumbdrive? i guess i don't mind so much the loss of the data since it's all in my ibook anyways. i need the usb drive to transfer files from my 'book to the pc's at the office though. but now i can't even write on the disk since i can't find the icon anywhere even though it's properly plugged in (the LED indicator lights up). does this mean i have to get a new usb drive?

[Maverick]

just to add on to joel's post, you should touch a metal object in order to ground yourself and release the static electricity. This happened to me one time with an SD card that I use with my PDA, I had a lot of static, touched it, and basically erased my data.

I had to reformat the card again for it to be readable.

[joel]

cherryb, if you can't find the icon, try restarting your mac. this actually happened to me a few days ago. a device was plugged in properly but the icon was nowhere to be found. fearing the worst, i restarted. after a restart, the icons showed without problems.

[Adel]

Cherry, sometimes doing a RDP will do the trick - Repair Disk Permissions.

I have a similar problem, since we're on the topic. I have a USB reader for SD/MMC cards, but somehow I can never get the cards, which I use on a Tungsten T, to mount on my Macs.

What formatting protocols or file systems do PDAs employ? Or cellphones for that matter? Are they incompatible with Macs, or is there some way around it?

I imagine our MAPALAD brothers might know the answers. Nino? WinZu?

[quicksilver]

hi cherrie. if all else fails, and if you only need your thumbdrive to transfer files, try reformatting your thumbdrive. i encountered a similar problem two days ago and i had to reformat my thumbdrive on my pc. everything works fine now after i reformatted my thumbdrive.

[Macmon]

Originally posted by Adel
Cherry, sometimes doing a RDP will do the trick - Repair Disk Permissions.

I have a similar problem, since we're on the topic. I have a USB reader for SD/MMC cards, but somehow I can never get the cards, which I use on a Tungsten T, to mount on my Macs.

What formatting protocols or file systems do PDAs employ? Or cellphones for that matter? Are they incompatible with Macs, or is there some way around it?

I imagine our MAPALAD brothers might know the answers. Nino? WinZu?

Hi adel,

Basically the format of the SD or MMC card used by PALM is the same file system for windows. It is read simply as with the directories.

I use a gogo egg to insert my SD/MMC into it and then plug it to the ibook. It is simply read as is when it mounts. Have you tried other card readers?

I should be read without any special work arounds.

[cherryb]

thanks for the help, everyone!

i reformatted my thumbdrive (isn't this a brandname? is it like calling toothpaste "colgate"?) and it's working again. all my files were erased but it could not be helped. for the past few days, i had done countless re-starts and RDP-ing, each coupled with a hail mary or glory be, just so i wouldn't have to reformat. well, what matters is it's working again. thank you, thank you, thank you... :roll:

[Maverick]

glad to be of service.