LizyMarie Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 I have had my MacBook Pro for a little over a year and once in a while I have noticed that it will make my thumb drives not work. What is happening is I am using the thumb drive for storage, so i'll add and delete items throughout a single use, but on my Mac, it will end up showing that the thumb drive has no space left to use. I thought "hmm" and plugged it into a Windows computer to see if I got the same message. Sure enough, there was nothing left on the thumb drive(because I wiped it clean) and yet I had no memory space left. I have tried this with a few different thumb drives, and yes, I DO eject them properly on every computer I use them on. Just because I like to play it safe. I asked around a little bit and talked to some fellow mac friends but no one had an answer. This is just a curious event, and sort of a nuisance, so i was hoping for some helpful feedback. :) I'm in no hurry or real need to know what's wrong, but maybe you guys know! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wembly Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 Sadly I don't have an answer either but I personally have found that certain brands of external drives just don't work well with my mac. They claim to be compatible but for whatever reason especially if it has been used on a windows pc first it just won't work. Personally I just never buy that brand again and don't have any problems with different brands/models. Basically this probably wasn't helpful to you just wanted to let you know you weren't the only one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alice ☮ Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 Hmm... well the only two things that came to mind would be improperly ejecting (you have to actually click "eject" and get the "safe to remove now" message, but you said you're doing that, so scratch that), or just normal wear-and-tear causing it to malfunction. How old is the USB key? I don't think it would be because of mac/PC compatibility issues. I've never heard of that. (Which doesn't mean it can't happen :P). I'll put my thinking cap on and see if anything comes to me :king: EDIT: Never mind about the Mac/PC compatibility thing. Wembly just eliminated my theory xD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LizyMarie Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 Sadly I don't have an answer either but I personally have found that certain brands of external drives just don't work well with my mac. They claim to be compatible but for whatever reason especially if it has been used on a windows pc first it just won't work. Personally I just never buy that brand again and don't have any problems with different brands/models. Basically this probably wasn't helpful to you just wanted to let you know you weren't the only one. I actually don't know anything about compatibility there, so I have no idea if they were compatible or not. But I'll keep an eye on that and see what brand seems to work and such. Thanks for that :) I'll look into Mac/Windows compatibility with brands. (I'm really not a hardware kind of girl. mainly software. And coding. XD) EDIT: Never mind about the Mac/PC compatibility thing. Wembly just eliminated my theory xD But still, something I wouldn't have thought about. I didn't think it would even matter, but now that I know I'll be sure to look. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alice ☮ Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 What happens if you plug it into your Mac? You said it tells you that it's full, but does it show you files? Or does it show up as empty? And what happens if you put a file on it from a PC, and then open it on your Mac. Is the file still there? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LizyMarie Posted December 6, 2011 Author Share Posted December 6, 2011 What happens if you plug it into your Mac? You said it tells you that it's full, but does it show you files? Or does it show up as empty? And what happens if you put a file on it from a PC, and then open it on your Mac. Is the file still there? When I plug in the thumb drive, it will show any files that are in there. If it's empty, then it will show nothing. But it will always say it's full, and can not fit any more information. If I take out the thumb drive and plug it into a Windows PC then it will show the files if they are there, or nothing if it's blank, but it still returns the same thing as the Mac. it says it is full and can not fit anymore. What it's doing is, when it's on the Mac, if I delete something off of the thumbdrive, it's not deleting it correctly, and therefore causing all OSs to just respond as "that memory is already being used" when it isn't. I am not sure why it's doing this, it's been driving me nuts! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nataluna Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 when you delete stuff off external drives it pays to clear your trash and recycling bin, if you view hidden files, you'll see that both mac and windows both have their own versions on your external drive. i found that out once when i deleted something on the mac, only to find although it said i had space free on it when i plugged it into windows, it won't copy files because it said the space was full, and i could see trash files taking a bunch of space. if you have a flash drive, cleck if it has a write protect function, sometimes those are little buttons on the outside. if you try to write to it it will fail if enabled. if all else fails, consider reformating the drive, it may be that the format being used is not working well in both environments. it will also present you with a clean wipe with memory all being restored (you will lose everything on it though, so have backups if you want to keep anything) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
domsim Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 Had the exact same issue on my Mac, and the solution was the first that annukii suggested, just empty the trash :) Hope it works! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LizyMarie Posted December 6, 2011 Author Share Posted December 6, 2011 when you delete stuff off external drives it pays to clear your trash and recycling bin, if you view hidden files, you'll see that both mac and windows both have their own versions on your external drive. i found that out once when i deleted something on the mac, only to find although it said i had space free on it when i plugged it into windows, it won't copy files because it said the space was full, and i could see trash files taking a bunch of space. if you have a flash drive, cleck if it has a write protect function, sometimes those are little buttons on the outside. if you try to write to it it will fail if enabled. if all else fails, consider reformating the drive, it may be that the format being used is not working well in both environments. it will also present you with a clean wipe with memory all being restored (you will lose everything on it though, so have backups if you want to keep anything) Had the exact same issue on my Mac, and the solution was the first that annukii suggested, just empty the trash :) Hope it works! I have done that. :P I guess it will just mean I'll have to be more aware of how it happens next time it does. Like I mentioned, it's only happened a few times, so maybe it was just the thumbdrive not being compatible like one of the other guys previously mentioned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nataluna Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 good luck! if it happens again, let us know, with as many details as you can :) i love my mac :wub_anim: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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