Issue with USB key

I have an "incredible" issue with one of my USB key, a 4gb Sony.

if I plug it directly to the mac (in either the 2 ports), it won't be recognized, but if I plug it in the USB hub attached to one of the 2 ports, it appears on the screen

one problem, if I'm out, no hub ...

The USB key appears on windows vista and 7 as well.

I tried to format it, but no way.
And ho yes, actually couple of weeks ago, it worked perfectly fine.

any clue ?
Thanks

 

Is there some type of device manager on your mac that you can go to?

Because if you have windows, you can go to the device manager and check out if its being recognized. my guess is that there is no driver installed for it, since it was already installed on windows first.

 

Mac's have drivers for most if not all peripherials for your computer, including printers, USB drives, etc, etc. Most all of them that are supported are plug and play, but not really sure what is going on here. What brand are you using?

 

Actually, the USB key was working fine couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure but maybe I unplugged it without ejecting it. but still, it's working on vista and if I plug it on the mac's hub...

It's in the first post

a Sony 4gb (not even 1 year old).

 

Ahh, I really need to pay attention to details. . I don't seem to know what the problem is, unless there is something wrong with one of the pins that wouldn't allow your computer to read it, but your computer would read the perfectly intact usb hub?

 

yes, if I put the usb key in the hub connected to the mac, it works just fine.

 

Have you tried any other sticks in the Mac?

 

yes, I have exactly the same stick but in 1gb and it works fine when I put it in the mac, same for another stick from a friend.

 

I would say its something to do with the stick itself... how is it partitioned(FAT,HFS+,NTFS), and how were the other sticks that work partitioned as?

 

this would be question as well. maybe try reformatting it (after backing up your data).

 

I already tried to reformat it
one time in FAT32 with Vista and one time with mac os in FAT
and each time the same.
I'll try to reformat it in FAT with either Vista or 7 tomorrow but hmmm...

 

Does the stick work when you put it into another computer? You may want to try that...

 

yes it does, with two other vista computers. Couldn't try with another Mac.

I tried today with the mac running win 7 and the key is recognized.

I'm thinking now about a wrong allocation of usb on the system. maybe I didn't remove the usb key properly and now it's blocked in the system.

???

 

just to signal: problem resolved by chance ...

Today I plugged the usb key into the mac and it worked at first try.
Sometimes, computers are strange things ....

 

well, i'm affraid it does it again, and this time both on mac os and win 7 on the mbp

I tried on another machine with vista and it works well

my other usb stick (same one) does work well on my mac.

still no clue ?

cheers

 

Have you formatted it so that it will work with Vista's feature that allows you to use a memory stick as RAM? Mabye that may be the reason that it is acting up in OS X and Windows 7. Just a thought..

 

my suggestion is the next time that you able to plug it in(and it works) get all the information off of there and start trying things from there

 

no, I formatted it with os X. and still, I didn't do anything between the time it worked again on 7 and os x and now.

I already took everything off this usb key, formatted it with win7, again with osx ...

 

sounds like the issue might be with the flash drive. maybe you got a bad one.

 

then again it works pretty fine with my mates laptops on win vista, and it worked fine before on my mac


EDIT:
Okkk, something new occurred again, actually I was on win7, and I tried to plug it into the second usb plug (the one on the left), I don't do it usually since I use it all time. but well it works and again, it still doesn't work on the other usb plug still on win7.

so I guess smth is really going on in this port ???

but it is working for everything else: my other usb key, mouse, external drive ....

 

I am thinking that it has to do something with the USB flash drive. You may want to do a check on it to see if there are any bad sectors on it. If I am not mistaken, I believe Vista has a feature for this(Not sure about OSX).