how can I find flash drive

[barb mann]

flash drive doesn't open in finder. Where can I find it?
thank you

 

[pigoo3]

Are you saying that there is no icon on your computer's desktop for your flash drive? If so...when on the desktop go to the:

- "Finder" drop down menu
- Choose "Preferences"
- In the next window under "Show these items on the desktop"...select everything you want displayed.

* Nick

 

[KevinJS]

Is your flash drive plugged in directly or is it plugged into a hub? Direct is better.

Have you tried another USB port? If one is not working, reboot the computer.

Have you tried another flash drive?

 

[Sawday]

Sometimes a flash drive don't show up if you insert it and then open Finder. Try opening Finder first then inserting drive..

 

[dero]

I'm actually having the same problem, I have a 1 TB external drive (Seagate) that I use to have plugged in a hub but since the dissapearance off the scene, I tried plugging it in one of the USB outputs in the back of my 2009 IMac, which I just recently upgraded to Mac OS Sierra 10.12 (the day before I started having problems with my ext drive. It(the icon) does not show up on the screen, but if I plug it on a PC, I have no issues, this was also the way it was before. I did make sure that everything was selected in the Finder- prefferences drop down menu like Pigoo sugested (everything was already selected). I can access my Seagate dashboard but it's telling me that the drive is full, BUT when I plug the drive in my PC I can actually access everything and can tally up around 150 GB of data on the drive. The Disk Utility also says that it's full. Can I attribute all of this to Sierra? Who knows?
Another quirky thing, I have a Lexar 16 GB that I emptied and yes it says 15.32 GB available(right click, get info, properties) on my Mac, but when I plug it in my PC it reads(right click ,properties) 196MB available.
I have contacted support at Seagate, but dealing through emails and in India, they don't understand much and you loose a lot in the translation...

 

[Rod]

Just going with barb man first, if the flash drive is plugged into a USB port that you already know works, can you see it in Disk Utility? If not it is damaged or corrupted. If it is formatted for Mac OS Extended (Journalled) then that's pretty much the end of the story.
Sometimes this happens by itself but other factors can be how it has been treated. For example if you remove a flash drive without ejecting it that can greatly reduce it's lifespan the same if you disconnect a hub that it's plugged into or turn off the power to the hub.

 

[Rod]

dero, if you can access your Seagate Dashboard then can I assume this USB HD is formatted for FAT 32 (Windows). So you did not reformat it when you started using it? My suggestion would be to save your data first then erase and reformat on the Mac to whichever format you prefer. If you want to use them on PC as well then they will need to be FAT. see this page; http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/207851en?language=en_US

 

[dero]

Hi Rod,
Yes, I did format it after I purchased it about 6 months ago and it had been working perfectly, I could read and write on Mac and PC .
But not anymore.I will check to see if anything changed (how I don't know)

 

[Rod]

Sorry a bit slow with my addit.

 

[Rod]

If you can still see it on PC you might like to try repairing or erasing and reformatting on the PC. If it then becomes visible on the Mac use Disk Utility to erase and reformat again to FAT on the Mac. It is of course possible that it is dieing anyway, Seagate don't have a very good reputation on this Forum although I do have one myself.

 

[ferrarr]

Hi Rod,
Yes, I did format it after I purchased it about 6 months ago and it had been working perfectly, I could read and write on Mac and PC .
But not anymore.I will check to see if anything changed (how I don't know)

Was the drive connected when you did the upgrade to mac OS Sierra? macOS 10.12 was supposed to offer new file system APFS, could this have affected the issue?

 

[dero]

No the drive was NOT connected when I did the upgrade. I have two other ext drives running in the background (WD) they were connected when I did the upgrade and they work as before. Could be the issue... But I'm still trying schtuff, like Rod suggested.

Thanks guys.

 

[dero]

Fixed!!! After verifying what it was formatted as, the light made itself apparent. For some odd reason, which I can't explain, it was formatted as "NTFS" which as we all know is propietary to Windows only. So I re-formated as a XFat, yes I do transfers of 4GB and over sometimes, and with Fat32, you can't.
How can a drive re-format itself, 'cus I certainly did not do it, question for the format Gods.
Thank you all for your suggestions and once again my MacStable is happy.
Thanks Rod.


*Just as an adddendum. Mac OS X can only read NTFS drives, not write to them.

 

[Rod]

Aha, that certainly explains it. I'd suspect your Windows PC did it when you weren't looking.

 

[dero]

THAT would not suprise me a bit, they are sneaky like that, those PCs.
Sent an email to Seagate no let them close that case, their response, how did you fix it? Did you bring it into a shop? Still clueless...
Rod, thanks again.