Format Flash Drive For Mac And Pc

Jul 31,2019 • Filed to: USB Recovery • Proven solutions

How Can I Fix my Flash Drive Not Recognized?

Open up your 'My Computer' (or 'Computer' in Vista) from the Start Menu and look for the drive that has a 'Removable Disk' icon. This is usually assigned to the last drive letter and may show multiple drives if multiple devices are plugged in. Right-click on the device you wish to format and select 'Format'. Learn how to format your USB flash drive or USB external drive so you can use it on both Mac OS X and Windows computers. Now you can share files between a Mac and Windows computer! More info about. If you have an old flash drive or one that was formatted to work with Windows or another operating system, you can still format your flash drive to work on a Mac. Volume Format Most manufacturers use the FAT 32 or MS-DOS (FAT) volume format.

Question: 'My USB flash drive is not recognized when I plug it to the computer. What causes such problem happens? Is my USB drive got broken? How to fix the flash drive not recognized issue? Also, can I recover data from the USB flash drive not recognized?'

Solved: USB not recognized is the common problem reported many users, it could be broken or other reason caused the drive error. But don't worry, you can follow the next guide to fix the flash drive not recognized error on Windows and Mac, then recover files from flash drive with Recoverit Data Recovery program.

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What Caused the Flash Drive Not Recognized on Computer?

There are several root causes that would result in the not recognized flash drive issue. They should be addressed so that you will not need to deal with the issue(s) for a long period of time.

Port Related Issues:: To determine if this is a port problem, test every USB port that you have with different flash drives. This could be either hardware or software issues, or both. In this case, you would need a professional to help you correct this.

USB Formatting Issue: This is the most probable reason your computer could not detect your flash drive. The inability to format flash drive properly before the first use could cause problems later on.

Driver Issue: The drivers may not be available, corrupted or outdated which would make the flash drive not Recognized.

Hard Drive Related Issues: A glitch in your machine's hard drive will not allow anything on it work in good and perfect way. This hardware issue should be addressed because it will affect more than your computer's ability to recognize a flash drive.

Operating System Related Issues: Sometimes, if your OS is not updated with the necessary updates as often as possible, it would cause the system to not recognise the flash drive. This could be simply rectified by updating the necessary components.

4 Ways to Fix the USB Flash Drive Not Recognized Problems on Windows

Depending on what is the root cause of the problem, you may only need to do one of these four steps or all of them. Follow these solutions step-by-step to resolve your problem.

Way 1: Scan Flash Drive to Find the Issue

  1. Plug the flash drive into your USB port.
  2. Go to My Computer and right-click on the flash drive. Open the Properties
  1. Open the Tools tab and click Check now'¦
  1. It may take some time to complete the scan. Once finished, it will tell you what the flash drive's problem is.

Way 2: Reformat the Flash Drive

  1. Right-click on the flash drive and click on Format'¦ ,the Format window will pop up.
  1. Under the File system toggle it between NTFS and FAT32. Click Start.

Way 3: Perform driver updates

  1. Open the Run command and type in msc in the field. Click OK.
  1. This will open the Device Manager. Find the Universal Serial Bus controllers.
  1. Expand the menu and right-click on the Generic USB Hub. Click on Update Driver Software'¦

Way 4: Operating System Updates

  1. Go to Control Panel, then System and security.
  1. Under the Windows Update section, click on Check for Updates.
  1. If it is not updated (the notification is not green in colour), update it accordingly as indicated by the system.
  1. Follow the updating wizard and restart your computer accordingly.

3 Ways to Fix the Flash Drive Not Recognized Problem on Mac

Like in Windows, your resolution method will be determined by the root cause of the problem. These are the three ways that you can do to fix flash drive not Recognized issue.

Way 1: Manually Connect the Flash Drive

  1. Go to Application and click on Utilities.
  1. A pop up window will appear and click on the highlighted commands as marked in the image below:
  1. Under Devices, click External Devices to manually connect the unrecognisable flash drive.

Way 2: Retune PRAM

  1. Shut down your Mac.
  2. Press the Power button and subsequently hold down the Command-Option-P-R This should be done before the grey screen appears.
  1. Your Mac should reboots itself. Let it go after the start-up chime.

Way 3: Format Mac's Drive

  1. Press the Command-Spacebar buttons simultaneously, plug in the flash drive and go to the Application Click on the Disk Utility option.
  1. You will be able to find the flash drives that need to be fixed in the left panel.
  1. Click on the Erase button to complete the process.

What's Next?

Now that the flash drive not Recognized problem is solved on your Windows or Mac computer, make sure you had back-up all important document in the flash drive. This is to ensure that you will be able to access the files stored in the flash drive should it happens again.

You should also check if there are any accidental data loss from the drive. Should you find things missing, use a flash drive data recovery tool to help you recover loss documents do this immediately before it is overwritten by new data.

How to Recover Data from Flash Drive Not Recognized on Windows

When you fix the USB flash drive not recognized with format solution, all your data on the drive will got formatted and lost. On this guide we will show you how to recover data from flash drive not recognized on Windows. Recoverit Data Recovery software can easily help you recover lost files from flash drive, even the drive got damaged/corrupted, formatted, virus attack and the file system crashed.

Recoverit - The Best USB Flash Drive Recovery Software

  • Undeleted files from flash drive which not recognized on Windows and Mac.
  • Recover files from USB flash drive due to accidentally deleted, formatted and damaged/corrupted.

Steps to Recover Lost Data from Flash Drive

Download and install Recoverit Flash Drive Recovery on your computer, follow the next simple steps to perform flash drive data recovery on Windows computer.

Step 1. Launch Recoverit Data Recovery program, select the 'External Device Recovery' mode to get started.

Step 2. Make sure your flash drive detected on the computer, select it and click 'Start' to proceed.

Flash Player For Mac

Step 3. The flash drive recovery software will start to scanning the device to search and restore your data files.

Step 4. Finally, you can check all recovered files. Select your data and recover back by clicking 'Recover' button.

If you are a MAC user, you should download Recoverit Data Recovery for Mac or follow the guide to perform flash drive recovery on Mac.

Apparently that is no longer allowed either (too big). Pros: nothing. It's amazing how bad a screw up this is. Then I tried to simply cut and paste my book into Publisher. Cons: simple import of files. Office publisher for mac free.

Note: Recover Lost Mac Data under Mac OS X 10.13 (High Sierra)

Due to macOS High Sierra (macOS 10.13) requirement, Mac users are not allowed an access to the built-in system drive from any apps. Therefore, if you need to restore lost data from the system disk under macOS 10.13, please 'disable System Integrity Protection' first.

How to disable 'System Integrity protection'? Please follow the steps below.

Windows 10 for mac microsoft

Step 1Reboot the Mac and hold down 'Command + R' keys simultaneously after you hear the startup chime, this will boot OS X into Recovery Mode.

Step 2When the 'OS X Utilities' screen appears, pull down the 'Utilities' menu at the top of the screen instead, and choose 'Terminal'.

Step 3In the 'Terminal' window, type in 'csrutil disable' and press 'Enter' then restart your Mac.

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