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Geek Culture / Corrupted flash drive

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Fuzz
18
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Joined: 14th Nov 2006
Location: Tasmania, Australia
Posted: 14th Apr 2011 03:15
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My friend put my flash drive in her MAC laptop and it worked fine but then I went to use it later and it says that the drive is not formatted and asks if I want to format it.

It has game dev files that I planned to back up, but this unfortunatly happened and the files are only on my flash drive (or were ).

I've tried using it on XP and Windows 7 but the same thing happens. Is it possible that it will work on her MAC?


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AutoBot
15
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Joined: 25th Sep 2009
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Posted: 14th Apr 2011 04:39
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Maybe the mac just changed the file system to somethng that Windows doesn't support, but isn't that sort of unheard of? The only other thing I would really do is bring it in for data recovery, but you might be able to find an alternative to that. I honestly don't know, haven't ecountered a problem like that before.


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Fuzz
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Posted: 14th Apr 2011 04:40
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Quote: "Maybe the mac just changed the file system to somethng that Windows doesn't support"


That's what I'm hoping!


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crispex
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Posted: 14th Apr 2011 05:46
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Chances are it converted the format to one of Apple's preferred file system (HFS Plus I presume), I'd say if Windows is throwing the error there is nothing you can do really, besides format it. Grab the files on the Mac and send them to yourself, then format.

I just now realized I've had a typo in my signature for the past 3 years.
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Slow Programmer
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Posted: 14th Apr 2011 05:50 Edited at: 14th Apr 2011 05:57
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Information that may help.

1) Macs can read NTFS, but cannot write to it.

2) Macs can read and right to FAT formatted drives.

3) Mac OS extended (Journaled) is the most commonly used Mac Format and is not readable by MS Windows.

4) Formatting a drive on a Mac is called, "Erase," not format.

5) Macs will not automatically format a drive. Someone has to enter the commands and go through a, "Are you sure," window.

Your friend may have accidentally reformatted your drive. Put it in a Mac and right click the drive icon. Select "Get Info" and check to see if it is formatted for a Mac.

There are two kinds of computer users. Those that use Macs and those that wish they did.
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crispex
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Posted: 14th Apr 2011 05:58
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Most flash drives are pre-formatted to FAT32, you'd have to be stupid to format it to NFTS, especially for such a small (as opposed to a hard drive) amount of memory.

I just now realized I've had a typo in my signature for the past 3 years.
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Slow Programmer
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Posted: 14th Apr 2011 06:08
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Quote: "Most flash drives are pre-formatted to FAT32, you'd have to be stupid to format it to NFTS, especially for such a small (as opposed to a hard drive) amount of memory."


Depends what you are doing and the size of the drive. I have used some 8 gig thumb drives to offload security camera files that are larger than 4 gigs. FAT can't handle those. I could have split the files, but it was a pain. I now use a USB hard drive instead. My luck with thumb drives has been bad as well. I have had several fail.

There are two kinds of computer users. Those that use Macs and those that wish they did.
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Phaelax
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Posted: 14th Apr 2011 12:32
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I've run into this issue before. Your drive has not been formatted, Mac does not automatically change it.

It's more of a Windows issue that causes the drive to appear unformatted. Do not format or you will lose the data, as for right now it's still there. I'm trying to remember what exactly I did to correct it. As far as I knew, it was an issue isolated with XP and possibly 2k, I have not had it happen with 7 yet, but I also don't have my mac anymore (it broke).

Even if the drive was formatted by mac, Windows disk tools should still be able to tell you what file system I believe.


I did a little research.
http://forums.techarena.in/windows-xp-support/823011.htm

Specifically, read the last post on the page. I do recall doing something to my registry to fix the issue.

The Internet: Where men are men, women are men, and children are federal agents
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puppyofkosh
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Posted: 14th Apr 2011 23:47
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I've had a problem where OSX formatted the drive to have 2 partitions. Unfortunately as far as I know windows can only read 1 partition on flash drives, so the 200mb partition OSX made (for whatever reason it was there) was the only one I could see. I fixed it with the HP flash drive formatting tool thingy.
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Fuzz
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Location: Tasmania, Australia
Posted: 15th Apr 2011 05:49
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Thanks for the replies everyone. I'll try putting it back in the MAC and see what happens. I'll report back when I find out.


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