Flash Drive - Arrange By won't stick

I couldn't find a thread on this with Search. My new flash drive will not "remember" where things were, nor that I don't want the Sidebar to show. My old one does. Why the difference?

I'm going into Show View Options and making sure it's on Snap to Grid, not Name or Date... etc. But when I eject it and remount, the icons are arranged by Name.

Corrupt .DS_Store file maybe?
Open Terminal and show the hidden files.
And then restart the Finder
To hide hidden files again change TRUE to FALSE and restart the Finder again.

Then delete or move the .DS_Store from the drive, it should be recreated when you change the view settings.
Another thing I've done with a stubborn folder is use the .DS_Store file from another folder that works and copy it to that folder, forcing it to use that .DS_Store file.

McYukon said:

Corrupt .DS_Store file maybe?

Click to expand...

Really? For a brand new, never-been-used flash drive? I don't know. Is that possible? Wait. I did change the name of the drive before I put anything on it. Could that, or just the act of copying files to it, cause the .DS_Store file to become corrupt?

Another thing I've done with a stubborn folder is use the .DS_Store file from another folder that works and copy it to that folder, forcing it to use that .DS_Store file.

Click to expand...

Intriguing. The obvious candidate would be the file for the older flash drive. I'm not sure how to find it, and find the right place for copying it to.

That it could be corrupt was just a guess, because when they become corrupt they usually stop saving window view settings.

I'm not 100% certain this will work, maybe I was just lucky ( I just wanted it to always open in column view)
#1 Show the hidden files using Terminal as in the post above.

The .DS_Store files are usually located once in each folder.
#2 First try deleting the .DS_Store file on the drive, and reconfigure all the settings.

#3 Then if it still won't remember your settings you can try copying the .DS_Store from a different folder with the right settings to the USB drive replacing it's .DS_Store (if it has one) with the one that you are copying.

BTW: How is the stick formatted?
Folder Background Won't "Stick" - macosx.com

This has obviously been on my "back burner". The flash drive is formatted as "MS-DOS (FAT 32)" and I've done some clicking around to try to find a way to reformat it, but I don't see any such option.

The stick I am replacing has been behaving, so this hasn't been a priority, but I'd like to have it remember the arrangement when I begin using it all the time!

Doing the Terminal commands suggested will affect things besides the flash drive, won't it? (such as my hard drive) I did look at the macosx.com link, which provides about the same info as in this thread.

Wish I knew what the solution/problem is, I did a bit more poking around and found this out.
Flash Drives that use MS-DOS (FAT 32) do not use the .DS_Store that folders in Mac OS use. The reason for this is that MS-DOS drives get used on windows machines and then all the Mac made invisible files will show in windows, annoying windows users.
Apple apparently got enough complaints so decided they stop putting the files on MS-DOS formatted drives.

So, copying the .DS_Store file from another folder/drive will not work.

Then I took a flash drive that I have (Sandisk), and erased and reformatted it with Disk Utility as MS-DOS (FAT 32).
I configured the drive to icon view and checked "Always open in icon view" & Snap to grid, now when I opened and Finder window and clicked into the flash drives folder it opened with icon view and Snap to grid.
However after ejecting the drive, mounting it and then reopening the drives folder again it had forgotten all the settings and opened in column view for some strange reason.

If I format the drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) it remembers the settings, even after a eject. But them I would have to install MacDrive on the windows machine for it to read the Flash drive.
Sharing an external drive between a Mac and a PC under Tiger® and earlier

What I don't get is why one of your sticks keeps it's settings and the other one doesn't.
I couldn't get mine to remember it's settings when it was MS-DOS formatted so I wonder what that failing drive of yours has that the other one hasn't.

The drive that keeps it's icon view/arrangement, is it by any chance formatted as FAT16? I don't think that it makes a difference but if it is…
You can see it when you show the info on the drive (command+i)

McYukon said:

The drive that keeps it's icon view/arrangement, is it by any chance formatted as FAT16? I don't think that it makes a difference but if it is…
You can see it when you show the info on the drive (command+i)

Click to expand...

It's Mac OS Extended (Journaled) - doesn't say FAT anything. It's made by Kanguru.

The new one that won't remember settings is a SanDisk.

How do I go about reformatting the SanDisk, and what should I format it as? (Maybe you answered the first part - using Disk Utility.)

Well if the one that remembers it's settings is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) it might explain why the other stick which is formatted as FAT 32 isn't remembering it's settings.
When I was toying around with all this, the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) drive remembered it's settings, the FAT 32 one didn't.

#0 Make sure that all your important data is backed up on the computers HD, we're going to erased the flash drive.
#1 Select the Flash Drive in the list
#2 Click the Erase tab
#3 Set the format to "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"
#4 Name the drive has afterwards
#5 No need to change the security settings, "Don't erase data" is fine.
#6 Click erase and wait till it finishes, you drive should be formatted as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" now.



Then it is formatted the same as the Kanguru drive and hopeful will remember it's settings.

Your instructions are superb! I did all that, just as you outlined - only before seeing your post. It will help others, I'm sure.

And. . . it worked! I closed the flash drive window, ejected it, and put it back in and it "remembered" all the settings I changed.

The data was all on the HD and on iDrive on the internet, so I had no worries.

YES!!! So happy it worked

I guess it's not iDrive, it's IDrive. And the logo/icon is a red padlock shape (could be a handbag) with a white 'e' on it. Hmmm.

We also have a Verbatim flash drive that doesn't remember its settings. After the next IDrive "backup" I'll erase and reformat that one too.