For time machine backups, its good to use a drive that has at least twice the storage capacity of your mac. Do i have to plug this into my macbook air then put my flash drive into that. I want to plug a usb flash drive into my macbook air is. Connecting to the mac leads to the recognition of the device which can then be used for file transfer and sharing. Heres how you can check the format of thumb drive on mac. Mac wont recognize a badly damaged flash drive or external hard drive since there is no way to show it up, even temporarily, which makes the data recovery difficult. Volume format most manufacturers use the fat 32 or msdos fat volume format. The transcend kit included all the physical tools i needed to install a new ssd in the macbook air and a handy usb 3. May 31, 2019 we will go over how to use a usb drive, thumb drive, flash drive, pendrive, etc, on a mac computer aka apple macintosh like a macbook pro, imac, mac mini, or mac pro.
In the lefthand side inside of disk utility you will see a list of all the connected hard drives. When you try to plug in the drive again, your mac no longer sees it. The last chance for you to rescue data is to send the broken usb drive to a specialized data recovery service center nearby, and let the professionals try their best. In the screenshot below, the drive is formatted with. Note that the drive bears the firewire symbol as an icon, marking it as an external drive. Since most of os x is static im not sure the garbage collection would becoming issue very quickly. Make sure that it has at least 12gb of available storage and is formatted as mac os extended. Type disk utility in the search box and press enter. Luckily sandisk offers 256gb ultra dual usbc drive, which contains plenty of storage while allowing you to use a newer macbook without dongles.
If it is full, you are not able to store more information on your mac computer. It is important to check your available space and manage the hard drive space. Launch disk utility, located in the utilities folder inside the application folder in finder. In the screenshot below, the drive is formatted with the exfat file system. Works with my pc and my mac this was a great price for a great flash drive which i was able to download and mac os to allow me to image my macbook pro when i swapped the hard drive for a ssd drive and worked flawless. I have some of his emails in a storage folder in mac mail. Aug 02, 2018 hold, before getting started the tutorial, keep in mind that apple mac computer and apple notebook including macbook pro, macbook air, macbook, etc. The highspeed cards thumb drive cost a lot more than normal speed cards thumb drive.
Many mac computers have usba ports sometimes referred to as usb 3 ports, which look like this. How to clear a flash drive on pc or mac with pictures wikihow. If youre looking for as much space as you can get at a great value and reliability, the pny turbo 256gb usb 3. Mostly, when usb flash drive cannot be detected by mac computer, data on the usb flash drive may not be able to survive from this disaster. For all intents and purposes, the transcend jetdrive lite acts like a little usb thumb drive but it fits flush into the sdxc card slot instead and appears on your mac like an external drive that is always on, always available. It helps if you know how to set your finder preferences. How to start up your mac from an external usb storage device. Usb is an industry standard for connecting computers and other devices. Once the usb drive connected, mac should immediately detect the drive. Looking to buy the best flash drive for macbook in 2020. Youll see the drives file system displayed to the right of format under the general heading. Jun 20, 2012 copying files to a usb drive on a mac is easy to do. How to create a windows 10 installer usb drive from a mac. Now, on your mac device, click on finder icon, located at the dock bar below the screen 4.
Moving the installer to the usb takes a little more effort. Rightclick or controlclick the drives icon in the finders sidebar or on your desktop and select get info. Mar 12, 2020 connect the usb flash drive or other volume that youre using for the bootable installer. Copying files to a usb drive on a mac is easy to do. To see storage information about your mac, click the apple menu in the topleft of your screen. Modern macbooks, like the newer macbook air and the macbook pro may not have a fullsized. Quit all other applications on the mac, especially those that may be trying to access the external drive e. Mac tips using a usb drive on a mac diy in 5 ep 99 youtube. How to start up your mac from a bootable cddvd, usb thumb. There, you can open the usb, check and use all existing files on the drive again.
Mar 28, 2019 flag as inappropriate i want to plug a usb flash drive into my macbook air is this the cable i would use. If youre downloading macos catalina, macos mojave, or macos high sierra for the purpose of creating a bootable installer, your mac must be using macos sierra 10. How to upgrade your macbook air with more storage imore. To see the size of a specific file or folder, click it once and then press commandi. Jul 05, 2017 rightclick or controlclick the drives icon in the finders sidebar or on your desktop and select get info. From the finder of mac os, navigate to any folder where there might be hidden files. Best external hard drive for macs, plus 256gb usb flash drives because apple is so stingy with storage you get just 128gb in the entrylevel macbook air and macbook pro having a good external hard drive for macs is important for offloading your large video and photo files. For example, if you install macos or microsoft windows on a usb drive, your mac can recognize that drive as a startup disk. Anyway, when you stick a flash drive into a mac, an icon for the flash drive should show up on the desktop. Each physical drive is shown with the partitions of that drive nested below.
How to create a bootable installer for macos apple support. I want to plug a usb flash drive into my macbook air is this the cable. The tardisk pear system, on the other hand, also uses the sdxc card slot but. Rightclick on the thumb drive icon, and select eject, and then manually remove it.
Sometimes our macbooks, macbook pros, or macs dont recognize our external drives or external thumb drives. Lacie 2tb mobile drive external hard drive usbc usb 3. Type or paste one of the following commands in terminal. Mac all howtos win 10 win 8 win 7 win xp win vista win 9598 win nt win me win 2000 win 2012 win 2008 win 2003 win 3. If your pen drive uses a usb typec connection slightly smaller and s. Tips to fix mac doesnt recognize external hard drive on. Are you looking to move the osx installer to a drive or just have a second bootable device. The best external hard drives for mac in 2020 pcmag. Connect that drive to an open usb port on your mac. If you have a disk already mounted and your system goes to sleep, it also powers down ports, including usb ports. If your mac just boots to the login screen and you dont see the boot options menu, reboot your mac again and hold. Macs can read and write to fat32 and exfat formatted drives which is the default format for most usb drives so you can share files between. By default, mac starts from its builtin hard disk, but a startup disk can be any storage device that contains bootable contents that compatible with your mac.
I have run my macs off of both usb and sd cards on a temporary basis without any real issues except speed. Most modern mac laptops except for the macbook air have a dvdr drive, which makes it easy to send up to 8. We will go over how to use a usb drive, thumb drive, flash drive, pendrive, etc, on a mac computer aka apple macintosh like a macbook pro, imac, mac. The highspeed cardsthumb drive cost a lot more than normal speed cardsthumb drive. Macbook air if your pen drive uses a usb typea connection the good ol rectangle interface, you can plug it right into your macbook air because the air has usb typea ports.
If the latter, simply format the usb drive and install osx onto the drive. How to connect a pen drive to an apple macbook air quora. Simply attach the pen drive to your mac by inserting it into the usb slot. Click on the external drive that you are trying to recover files from. May 23, 2017 to actually boot the drive, reboot your mac and hold down the option key while it boots. So, to figure out the effective solutions for your own case, you need to take time to have some basic check, exclude the irrelevant issues, identify the potential risk, and finally.
The reasons behind the problem of a usb device not showing up are various, including the usb port is not working, usb drive corruption, virus infection, macos faulty, etc. Jan 31, 2020 luckily sandisk offers 256gb ultra dual usbc drive, which contains plenty of storage while allowing you to use a newer macbook without dongles. Sep 14, 2015 how to start up your mac from an external usb storage device. Its a complete backup solution, but you can use other backup methods as well. Mac doesnt recognize external hard drive anymore and why your mac is not mounting or wont detect specific popular brand drives including seagate, wd, toshiba, iomega, lacie, and exfat. How do i copy a powerpoint presentation onto a flashdrive.
Meanwhile, imacs, mac pros, mac minis, and the entrylevel macbook air all still come with usb 3. How to format a flash drive on macos erase usb macmetric. Highlight the physical drive you wish to reformat and on the menu at the top to the right select erase. To actually boot the drive, reboot your mac and hold down the option key while it boots. Connect the usb flash drive or other volume that youre using for the bootable installer. If you also have the same requirements, then consider checking the existing pen drive format first. Typec flash drive iphone usb flash drive 128 gb high speed memory stick 3 in 1 thumb drive jump drive for android, samsung, iphone, macbook, pc and more devices gold 4. Mac how to find hard drive size on macbook pro, macbook air. Launch finder once the pen drive is detected by mac. Depending on the storage capacity of the drive, flash drives typically come formatted with the fat, fat32 or exfat file system, which are compatible with windows. Oct 29, 2019 if you also have the same requirements, then consider checking the existing pen drive format first. Usb c flash drive, disain 64gb type c flash driveusba 3. Open terminal, which is in the utilities folder of your applications folder.
Usb c flash drive, disain 64gb type c flash drive usba 3. There are several reasons why your mac wont recognize a drive. Time machine is the builtin backup feature of your mac. Select that option, and after moment or so the drive icon will disapper from the desktop meaning you can now safely remove th. This will reformat your flash drive and it will fix the flash drive not recognized issue. If your mac is hiding files from you, then you cant see files on usb drives on mac. Best external hard drive for macs, plus 256gb flash drives. If your usb thumb drive, usbbased external disk or flash storage contains a usable operating system or an os x installer, you can select it at boot time using os xs builtin feature called startup manager, which can be invoked via a simple keystroke. Solved how to remove flash drive safely from a macbook air. Dont worry, apply my task, im sure that you will get rid of on this issue. Buying an external hard drive for your mac is not all that different from buying one for. Disk utility application in macos is the best option to format a flash drive on macos. How to back up photos on a mac using a flash drive your. How to format a usb flash drive on a mac techwalla.
You can drag the powerpoint file to the icon, just like you would any other file. How to open a flash drive on a macbook air computer quora. You can reformat a hard drive on mac os x by using disk utility. A jump drive, also known as a usb thumb or flash drive, offers one of the most. May 09, 2019 buying an external hard drive for your mac is not all that different from buying one for. If there are any files on the drive you need to keep, copy them to your mac computer. On the left side, click the usb drive device and leave the window open like this. How to open an external drive thats not showing on mac. Aug 17, 20 i have run my mac s off of both usb and sd cards on a temporary basis without any real issues except speed.
This situation often occurs after you initially eject the external drive and unplug it from your computer. Transferring photos from mac to usb drive in 5 steps. It appears as a separate storage option to your macs operating system. Mac tips using a usb drive on a mac diy in 5 ep 99.
When you wake your mac up, for whatever reason, your external drive does not wake up. You can also use icloud and icloud drive to store files, such as your photos, documents, and music. It is designed for convenience, so opening the jump drive on your macbook. I you guys could tell me how to save them to a usb thumb drive, i would be extremely grateful.
Jul 31, 2018 by default, mac starts from its builtin hard disk, but a startup disk can be any storage device that contains bootable contents that compatible with your mac. 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. Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or instore pickup. After you plug in an external drive, mac os x displays it just like any other hard drive volume. I wonder why a moderator moved this mac question to a windows drive.
Find the installer in your applications folder as a single install file, such as install macos catalina. The mac will boot the linux system from the connected usb drive. Macs can read and write to fat32 and exfat formatted drives which is the default format for most usb drives so. This guide provides 2 ways to boot a mac from a usb flash drive.
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