When I switched from Windows to macOS ten years ago , the most frightening horror stories I was told were the lack of applications and the inability to work with flash drives formatted for one operating system in another. As time has shown, the issue with the file system is very easily solved, and the growing popularity of the Apple operating system is attracting more and more developers. Unfortunately, apple devices, like any other, periodically encounter small and sometimes quite serious glitches.
Don’t believe the horror stories. macOS reads all flash drives.
Transferring documents and files using flash drives by 2022 is still one of the most popular ways to transfer information from one computer to another. But what if your Mac does not see the flash drive or does not allow you to write the necessary data to it? We have collected for you several ways to solve this very unpleasant problem.
Adapters for Macs
Adapters very often overheat and stop working.
If you are the owner of a Mac from the current line, then you know very well that it is simply impossible to connect a USB-A flash drive to it directly due to the lack of an appropriate connector. For such manipulation, in the arsenal of most owners of such computers there is always an adapter. However, users try to save on them and order cheap Chinese crafts from various sites. There is nothing wrong with using them, especially knowing the prices of Apple branded ones. In this case, you should choose a thing that has been checked by other buyers, which has many orders and positive reviews. Otherwise, you may simply face the fact that such a device will not work as it should.
In particular, when using such adapters, they may overheat. If this happens, then the computer may simply stop seeing your flash drive. So the first thing to do when you encounter this kind of problem is to make sure that the adapter or dongle is not overheating. Otherwise, unplug it from your Mac and let it cool down, then try plugging it back in.
But perhaps the problem is a little deeper. If you recently installed some kind of operating system update , then due to a small glitch, external drives and flash drives could stop appearing in Finder . To check this, do the following:
Usually the checkboxes do not disappear here, but everything is possible.
- Open any Finder windowand make it active. Its name should appear next to the Apple logo in the top left corner.
- Press the keyboard shortcut cmd+comma.
- Make sure external drives are checked. If not, then install and exit the settings.
Immediately after that, the flash drive or external hard drive will be displayed in Finder . However, it may be that the external drive shows signs of life in the form of glowing bulbs, but the Finder, as before, does not display it. Then you should make sure that the Mac, in principle, sees the flash drive:
- Hold down the Option key and click on the Apple logo in the top left corner.
- Select “System Information”.
- In the list on the left, go to “Storage”.
If your flash drive or external hard drive is displayed in this section, then there are some problems with the software. The computer understands that the drive is connected to it, but for some reason it cannot display it.
Restart Macbook
Probably every user knows how to restart a Mac. But at the right moment it is forgotten.
The first thing to do in such a situation is to restart your Mac . To do this, do the following:
- Click on the Apple logoin the top left corner.
- Select “Reboot”.
- Agree to close all programs and wait for the computer to restart completely.
❗️ПОДПИШИСЬ НА НАШ ЧАТИК В ТЕЛЕГРАМЕ. ТАМ СОБРАЛИСЬ ТОЛЬКО ИЗБРАННЫЕ ЧИТАТЕЛИ
After that, check the performance of your flash drive. If it is still not displayed, then you should proceed to the next step – turn off power saving mode . In some cases, if an external drive is consuming too much power, the operating system may force it to shut down. For this you need:
- Open system settings.
- Go to the “Battery” section.
- Disable power saving mode.
If there is too little charge left on the Mac, then simply connect it to the power supply. These steps will help you access data on your external drive.
How to open NTFS on Mac
Some hard drives can also be reset.
But it is possible that the flash drive or hard drive simply has the NTFS file system. macOS by default can open such drives and download data from them. But can’t write. However, I personally know cases when the operating system refused to even show their contents. To fix this error, I advise you to use a special software called Paragon NTFS. It has been installed on my home iMac for ten years, and it has never had any failures.
❗️ПОДПИШИСЬ НА НАШ ПУЛЬС. БУДЕШЬ УЗНАВАТЬ ВСЕ НОВОЕ САМЫМ ПЕРВЫМ
This utility has one drawback – it is paid. Its cost is 1399 rubles. Fortunately, this is not a subscription, but a one-time purchase. If you regularly interact with flash drives in this format, then I advise you to purchase it.
This utility can come in handy at any time when using a Mac.
- Go to the developer’s site.
- Click the “Buy” button if you plan to use this program permanently on your computer.
- Click “Download Trial” if you want to use it once.
- Pay the required amount and install the downloaded file on your Mac.
After that, you can safely connect any drives to your computer. They will immediately show up in the Finder. Moreover, you can both read data from them and write them down. Most importantly, the program is fully adapted to Apple M1 processors . Therefore, there will be no compatibility issues. If all these actions did not help you, and the drive is not displayed anywhere, then you should check its performance on another device. Most likely it just doesn’t work.