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Flash drives - PC and Mac?

MacDawg

MacDawg

Moderator emeritus
Original poster
Mar 20, 2004
19,823
4,505
"Between the Hedges"
OK, perhaps this is a really "duh" question, but I'm wondering if those little USB Flash Drives can be used on both Macs and PCs.

In other words, if I go to Office Depot and buy a little flash drive and take it to work and put my files on it from XP, can I take it home and have my Mac read it? That would be pretty cool, and would keep me from having to burn CDs.

Anybody do this?
And does anybody have any recommendations/advice about it?

Woof, Woof – Dawg
pawprint.gif
 
mad jew said:
They've always worked for me. I can't imagine any type that wouldn't.

Advice: obviously go for the largest you can afford. :)
Click to expand...

Sweet, I think I'll check that out
I like the idea of storing stuff that way, and transporting from work to home and vice versa

Woof, Woof – Dawg
pawprint.gif
 
One thing you have to make sure is that when you drag an item from your flash drive to the trash (on a mac) you have to then empty the trash. I was about to throw my flash drive out the window before i figured this out.
 
adk said:
One thing you have to make sure is that when you drag an item from your flash drive to the trash (on a mac) you have to then empty the trash. I was about to throw my flash drive out the window before i figured this out.
Click to expand...

Before removing the drive I assume? This might be the answer to my troubles with switching. I find that trashed files end up in a folder on the flash drive that isn't viewable on the drive itself, but they still take up space.
 
Does anyone else haev the problem that if you leave the Flash drive plugged into a Mac when you reboot, the flashdrive is not noticed by OS X?

(I am running 10.4.3)
 
I got a SanDisk 1GB flash drive for free through work. :)

It works great on every Mac/PC/Linux box I've tried it on.

With the thousands of different flash drives on the market there are bound to be some compatability issues somewhere, but overall the flash drives are 100% cross-platform.
 
I got a Kingston 256 MB thumbdrive:eek: .

got it from: http://www.mwave.com/mwave/DEPTFLASHMEDIA-USB.HMX?

it was like 15 bucks after rebate :eek: .. its worked on the xp machine and my iMac, If you plug the thumbdrive in xp first then Mac side it should still show up. Thumbdrives really cheap in cost wise like mine,but once you get above the 2 GB size the prices go sky high as the last time i checked the 4 GB size was still $150+ .. :eek: :eek:



iphil


Edit: I just realized that my thumbdrive wasn't 128MB, its a 256 MB thumbdrive :eek: :eek:
 
My roommate used her flashdrive to type up a paper on my PowerBook in Word, then printed it on her XP desktop later. Worked great. I'm thinking about getting a shuffle as a music player/ flash drive. Since I already have an iPod but would like the shuffle for working out, etc., this seems like a good idea.
 
AtHomeBoy_2000 said:
Does anyone else haev the problem that if you leave the Flash drive plugged into a Mac when you reboot, the flashdrive is not noticed by OS X?

(I am running 10.4.3)
Click to expand...
Nope, not here. The drive that I recommended (above) has never given me any ag what-so-ever. It's perfect cross-platform.
 
Just bought a Memorex 2 GB Flash Drive from Best Buy (I know, I know), for $99 after $20 mail in rebate. Regularly was $179 I think, on sale for $129 with $20 rebate. Haven't tried it yet, but I think it will be fine.

Thanks for the information everyone!

Woof, Woof - Dawg
pawprint.gif
 
munckee said:
Before removing the drive I assume? This might be the answer to my troubles with switching. I find that trashed files end up in a folder on the flash drive that isn't viewable on the drive itself, but they still take up space.
Click to expand...

That's true. There's a folder called .Trashes (names beginning with a '.' are hidden in OS X) that contains trashed files. I will note that if you delete files on a flash drive but don't empty the trash before removing it, it doesn't matter. Next time you plug it in and empty the trash, the files you deleted before will get emptied. In fact, you'll notice that if you have an empty trash icon, then plug in a flash drive which has trashed files on it (ie. a non-empty trash) the trash icon on the dock will change to show that it's full because the OS realizes that there are trashed but not emptied files on the drive you just plugged in.
 
mduser63 said:
That's true. There's a folder called .Trashes (names beginning with a '.' are hidden in OS X) that contains trashed files. I will note that if you delete files on a flash drive but don't empty the trash before removing it, it doesn't matter. Next time you plug it in and empty the trash, the files you deleted before will get emptied. In fact, you'll notice that if you have an empty trash icon, then plug in a flash drive which has trashed files on it (ie. a non-empty trash) the trash icon on the dock will change to show that it's full because the OS realizes that there are trashed but not emptied files on the drive you just plugged in.
Click to expand...

This is true of memory cards for cameras too.
I took some pictures on my digital camera, trashed them (but did not empty)
My wife took more pics and took the card to Walmart to print
They printed the trashed pics as well!
Luckily they weren't bad pics I was trying to hide!
But she was confused because she didn't know I had taken them.
I plugged the camera back in and emptied the trash.

BTW: My new 2 GB flash drive is working fine at work this morning, so I'll have work to do over the weekend now!

Woof, Woof – Dawg
pawprint.gif
 
mduser63 said:
That's true. There's a folder called .Trashes (names beginning with a '.' are hidden in OS X) that contains trashed files. I will note that if you delete files on a flash drive but don't empty the trash before removing it, it doesn't matter. Next time you plug it in and empty the trash, the files you deleted before will get emptied. In fact, you'll notice that if you have an empty trash icon, then plug in a flash drive which has trashed files on it (ie. a non-empty trash) the trash icon on the dock will change to show that it's full because the OS realizes that there are trashed but not emptied files on the drive you just plugged in.
Click to expand...

Ooohh...Now the light bulb in my head has suddenly been turned on:rolleyes: My son has a MuVo mp3-player, and he's often frustrated when he trashes content while plugged into his Mini, the files seem to be gone, but the amount of available space on the MuVo doesn't make sense. I've been "fixing" it by trying to erase it with Disk Utility, duh.
 
adk said:
One thing you have to make sure is that when you drag an item from your flash drive to the trash (on a mac) you have to then empty the trash. I was about to throw my flash drive out the window before i figured this out.
Click to expand...

Remeber the days when if you moved a file from a floppy disk to the deskotp it wouldn't copy the file to the computer? The file would be moved to a desktop folder on the disk. I don't know of this is still true or not. Ahhhh Mac and all its little quirks.
 
Funny... The assistant principal at my school found a flash drive outside the gym at my school. He gave it to me and said, "I tried this with my office machine and it froze the system, you can keep it."

Turns out it worked fine on a few other PCs as well as both my OS X running Macs. It's a 256MB drive, but for free, that's cool! :cool:
 
Hoef said:
My Sandisk comes with SecurDataStor but my guess is thats a windows only application .... Any suggestion how to encrypt a folder on a flashdrive using a Mac?
Click to expand...
Yeh I had some software on mine which was windows only, but I'm not that bothered about encrypting it.

The trouble is, for this windows only safety thing, the drive came partitioned
Is there any way to remove this partition on a flash drive?

::20ROGERSC::
 
20rogersc said:
The trouble is, for this windows only safety thing, the drive came partitioned
Is there any way to remove this partition on a flash drive?
Click to expand...
Disk Utility?

I can use Disk Utility to partition or reformat my brand new TwinMOS Mobile Disk X4. I didn't get any security software with it (nor the keyring they promised), and I don't really care. I've just kept it as a straight FAT16 formatted pendrive for now... :)
 
Hoef said:
My Sandisk comes with SecurDataStor but my guess is thats a windows only application .... Any suggestion how to encrypt a folder on a flashdrive using a Mac?
Click to expand...

Easiest way would be to use Disk Utility to create a secure disk image (DMG) on the flash drive. It would work very nicely on any Mac, but I'm not sure that Windows would be able to read the DMG.
 
Anyone used a Kingston Data Traveller Secure Privacy USB drive on a Mac?

Work has moved to secure Kingston USB drives - and it mounts in Finder as a disc (as CD image) expecting me to be able to run the exe file (DTSP app asking for the password).

Doesn't mount as a drive - so I can't get files off it or put files on it?
Tried Kingston website for Mac OS X app to no avail... seems secure USB drive is only Windoze compatible?!?!?!
 
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