By Nicole Sioni
Just install it, and Mac drives will show up like any other drive. If you need to work with Mac-formatted drives on a regular basis and you want the operating system integration, speed, and write access, Paragon HFS+ is a great choice and will be worth it for you. But, if you just need to get some files off a Mac-formatted drive occasionally. If the drive is not showing up on your Mac chances are it has not been formatted correctly, has been corrupted, or is faulty.
USB flash devices are normally very reliable, but they can occasionally have problems. Sometimes it's an issue with the USB ports not working; other times your computer doesn't recognize your drive. But one of the most common issues (and the easiest one to fix) is when your USB drive reads as full when you know it's not.
You may notice this issue when you try to copy over some files onto your drive and you get the 'File is too large for destination' error message. It may prompt you to delete excess files to make room. But how can that be? You were sure there was plenty of room.
If you're absolutely sure you have adequate space on your flash drive (you can see how much is available when you look at your drive in My Computer or by clicking the drive in Mac and checking under 'Get Info' beneath 'File'), then the problem is a either formatting, hidden files, user error, or over-provisioning.
Formatting to Restore to Full Capacity
The issue could be due to the pre-formatted file system on your drive which may have a file transfer limit below the amount of data you're attempting to copy or transfer. For example, the FAT32 file system has a file size limit of 4GB. This means that, regardless of how empty your drive is or how much storage capacity it has, you won't ever be able to transfer 4GB or more at once. You could break up your data into chunks but that's inefficient and annoying.
The solution is simply to reformat your drive so that it can handle the large data job. It's very simple DIY solution that doesn't require buying any additional software. Check out our blog on how to reformat a USB drive yourself; we also give you a quick run through on the different file formats. We recommend using the exFAT system as it has a high compatibility with large file sizes and is lightweight, without the mess that comes with the NTFS system.
Hidden Files
If formatting isn't the issue, then likely your drive isn't as empty as you think. This is because, even on a brand-new flash drive, it is not exactly empty. In fact, no USB drive is completely empty upon purchase. 'Blank' drives still contain hidden folders. These might be:
- .fseventsd
- .Spotlight-V100
- .Trashes
These are typically part of initial formatting of your drive and are found at the root level. These folders are placed on an empty drive to help your computer communicate with your flash drive. The '.Spotlight-V100' and '.fsventsd' files contain meta data (or data about data) that helps the indexing of files you store on your drive. These aren't causing your USB to read as full but the '.Trashes' folder is. Note that this file is only found on Mac operating systems. You won't find it on other systems. If you delete files using a Windows computer, for example, and then plug it in a Mac, it will generate the .trashes folder.
When it comes to taking out the trash, flash drives are a lot like computers: deleting something doesn't automatically make it go away. This is the number one reason why USB drives read as full—your flash memory is being used up by your deleted data!
When you delete a file on a hard drive, it gets sent to a waiting area where it can either be restored or permanently deleted. Flash drives work the same way: that's what the '.Trashes' hidden folder is for. There is one crucial difference, however, between how hard drives and flash drives take out the trash: there's no 'empty trash' function inside your USB.
Mac wireless keyboard. The only way to free up that used up storage space is to permanently delete your trashed files. To do that, though, you're going to need a little help from your computer.
How to Delete .Trashes Using Terminal on Mac
- Plug in your drive
- Open your Applications folder, select Utilities, and then double click on Terminal
- Type: 'sudo rm -R' and then press your spacebar ONCE; there needs to be a space after the 'R'
- Control click your trash icon to open
- Select files in your trash
- Drag to the Terminal window
- Press Enter
- Enter your administrator password
- Press Enter
How to Delete USB Drive Files on Windows/PC
- Plug in your drive
- Open your drive using File Explorer
- Select the existing files you want to delete
- Right click, and then select 'Delete'
- Open up your Recycle Bin on your Desktop, right click on an empty space, and choose 'Empty Recycle Bin'
As previously mentioned, the '.Trashes' folder only exists on Mac systems but you should still get in the habit of properly deleting files from your USB drive on Windows/PC systems. They could be clogging up your storage space.
A Quick Note about GiB vs GB…
A possible explanation for why you don't have as much room on your USB drive as you thought could boil down to simple user error.
As you probably know, digital information is measured in bytes. You've probably seen GiB and GB thrown around a lot, but you need to be aware of the difference. They're pretty closely related but a gibibyte (GiB) is slightly bigger than a Gigabyte; 1 GiB is roughly equal to 1.074 GB. Why is this important? After all, you've never seen a flash drive with GiB on it, have you?
Well, not your flash drive but your computer and other software can display the two incorrectly, or at least in a confusing way. For example, if you have a drive that says 500GB, your computer may display it as only 465GiB! Since the GiB is a little bigger, it actually ends up translating up to the same amount of bytes but our eyes sort of glaze over the 'i' in GiB and assume we're reading GB.
Over Provisioning
One other possibility is a practice called 'over provisioning' which is the practice of reserving a small amount of storage space to devote to memory controller functions. Over provisioning can help make a device more efficient by allocating resources to controller performance but this means that a small degree of advertised storage capacity is taken up. This practice is industry standard for SSDs (solid state drives) but you might see it in higher quality USB drives. If your drive is designed to utilize over provisioning, then there isn't much you can do about it. You'll just have to accept you have slightly less space than you thought.
A Quick Note about GiB vs GB…
A Quick Note about GiB vs GB…
A possible explanation for why you don't have as much room on your USB drive as you thought could boil down to simple user error.
As you probably know, digital information is measured in bytes. Telecharger os mac. You've probably seen GiB and GB thrown around a lot, but you need to be aware of the difference. They're pretty closely related but a gibibyte (GiB) is slightly bigger than a Gigabyte; 1 GiB is roughly equal to 1.074 GB. Why is this important? After all, you've never seen a flash drive with GiB on it, have you?
Well, not your flash drive but your computer and other software can display the two incorrectly, or at least in a confusing way. For example, if you have a drive that says 500GB, your computer may display it as only 465GiB! Since the GiB is a little bigger, it actually ends up translating up to the same amount of bytes but our eyes sort of glaze over the 'i' in GiB and assume we're reading GB.
It always gives you the creeps when you you find that you are unable to open your USB flash drive. You worried sick about losing the important data in the flash drive and with no solutions to help you fix this problem and prevent it from happening again.
In this post, we will be introducing some of the most effective ways to help you solve your USB flash drives not showing up on Windows 10 problem easily.
Step One: Diagnose the problem
Step Two: Fix the problem
- If Windows asks you to format the partition when you insert in your USB drive
- If your PC cannot see the USB drive, but other PCs can
- If you can see the drive in Disk Management, and it has partitions
- If you can see the drive in Disk Management, but is's empty
Step One: Diagnose the problem
To know where goes wrong, you can check Disk Management for more information.
1) Press Windows key and X at the same time, then choose Disk Management.
2) See if you can see your USB flash drive listed here as a Removable disk. If you can see it, move on to the next step.
If you cannot see it, please try:
- Change a different port. Please try plug your device into a different USB port on your computer to eliminate the possibility that the first port is not working.
- Avoid USB hubs. If you are connecting your USB drive via a USB hub, please try connect it directly into the USB ports, since the the USB hub might not supply enough power.
- Try a different computer. Please try connect your USB flash drive with another computer to see if the other computer detects it. If you cannot see it listed on the Disk Management window on the other computer, it is very likely that this USB drive is dead.
- Power on the drive. On some USB drive, there are power switches or separate power cables on them. If your USB flash drive fits the description, switch the power on your USB flash drive.
Step Two: Fix the problem
Here are different resolutions based on different symptoms shown on your screen. Please choose accordingly the right description for your situation.
If Windows asks you to format the partition when you insert in your USB drive
1) You might be seeing the notification below, don't formatjustyet, since it just erase everything on your USB flash drive.
It is possible that the drive was formatted with a file system that Windows doesn't normally support, such as Mac or Linux system.
If you don't need the files on the disk, you can go ahead and choose Format disk option to move on.
If you want to read a drive like this, you can connect it to the Mac or Linux PC that it was made on and copy the files off of it to another drive. Or you can choose to use a third-party program that you trust to help you 'read' the content on it.
If your PC cannot see the USB drive, but other PCs can
If this very drive is not showing on your computer, but can be seen on other computer, there might be something wrong with the USB drive driver on your PC.
Flash Drive Not Showing Up Windows 10
1) Press Windows key and X at the same time, then choose Device Manager.
2) Expand category Disk Drivers and Universal Serial Bus controllers to see if you can find any devices with a yellow exclamation mark on them.
If you are seeing some other types or marks, such as a question mark or a down-arrow mark or certain error notification or error codes, type the error codes in the searching box here to look for solutions:
3) If you see a certain driver with the yellow exclamation mark on it, please double click it to enter its Properties window.
4) Go to Drivers tab, and then choose Update Driver… option.
5) Wait for Microsoft to help you find the appropriate driver for your USB drive and hope that it will bring your USB flash drive back.
But there is no guarantee that your USB flash drive not showing problem will be fixed in this way since Microsoft is not always capable of finding you the exact driver for your device, especially when you are running Windows 10.
As an alternative, you can have a try at Driver Easy, a program that automatically helps you detect, download and install drivers needed on your Windows 10 computer.
Moreover, if you want to update all your device drivers all at once and at a very fast speed, why not have a try at the pro version of Driver Easy? Not only are you able to enjoy more exciting features, you can also have professional tech support coming from our skilled and experienced technicians.
If you can see the drive in Disk Management, and it has partitions
If you can see your flash drive in Disk Management window, and it has partitions, but you still cannot use it since it is not showing in Windows Explorer or File Explorer, you need to assign a letter to the drive.
1) Press Windows key and X at the same time, then choose Disk Management.
2) Right click the partition on the drive and then choose Change Drive Letter and Paths….
3) If your external hard drive doesn't have a letter, add a letter for this drive by pressing Add….
4) Assign a letter to it and click OK to save the change.
If you can see the drive in Disk Management, but is's empty
If you can see the drive in Disk Management, but it is Unallocated, with a black bar along the top, which means that the drive is completely empty and unformatted.
Right click the Unallocated space and choose New Simple Volume.
Choose the maximum possible size for the partition and assign a drive letter, or you can let Windows choose a drive letter automatically.
My Thumb Drive Is Not Showing Up Macbook Pro
You USB flash drive should be able to work on your Windows 10 PC now.
