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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Sony 4gb Flash Drive Reads In Tiger And Os9 But Not Panther!
Koose - Nov 5, 2005 - 9:48 pm
I am a local IT support person in a University department in a mixed Mac - PC environment.
A quirky flash drive problem that you may have the clues on. It is a 4Gb Sony branded and sys info agrees to same, though I suspect it could be a dodgy drive. One of the academics brought it back from China & paid AU$20!& says they were available for as low as $5! Anyway it would not mount on his PB17 running an updated 10.3.9. I tried then on a number of machines starting with a PC (no problem) and two OS9 boxes (no problem) and two Tiger boxes also no problems, but any number of 10.3.9 and no go whatsoever! system info will pick it up in the USB chain but it won't mount. I have formatted it on the PC & rechecked, then again on Mac OS 9 & Tiger, but still no luck.
What gives? I can't find a specific driver on the web for it either. I have some screen caps of the info screens of the various OS but it does not look like I can post them here.
NB this is my first use of this forum, cheers, Mark
A quirky flash drive problem that you may have the clues on. It is a 4Gb Sony branded and sys info agrees to same, though I suspect it could be a dodgy drive. One of the academics brought it back from China & paid AU$20!& says they were available for as low as $5! Anyway it would not mount on his PB17 running an updated 10.3.9. I tried then on a number of machines starting with a PC (no problem) and two OS9 boxes (no problem) and two Tiger boxes also no problems, but any number of 10.3.9 and no go whatsoever! system info will pick it up in the USB chain but it won't mount. I have formatted it on the PC & rechecked, then again on Mac OS 9 & Tiger, but still no luck.
What gives? I can't find a specific driver on the web for it either. I have some screen caps of the info screens of the various OS but it does not look like I can post them here.
NB this is my first use of this forum, cheers, Mark
ishan - Nov 6, 2005 - 8:12 pm
I can't believe this is a genuine Sony 4 Gb flash drive; it can't be at that price. Frankly, you have already done what I would suggest-format it as a FAT32 drive on a PC; the Mac will read it fine. But if you've done this and it works with OS 9.x and 10.4.x but not 10.3.x, it doesn't make any sense and I suspect the drive's firmware is corrupt. I don't know of any way to reflash the firmware, but you could try Sony's website to see if they have a firmware updater for this particular model number and if they do, reflash it on a PC (because it will probably be an updater written for Windows).
I'm not sure I'm helping you much, but sometimes you get what you pay for...given its potential future poor reliability, I would hesitate to keep using this Sony knockoff for anything important. The only other possibility is that the flash drive draws more power than the machines that you have tried to use it on running 10.3.9 supply via their USB port. However, if you've used it on multiple different machines running 10.3.9, that theory won't work either. Sorry I can't help you more...please resubmit the question if you wish.
I'm not sure I'm helping you much, but sometimes you get what you pay for...given its potential future poor reliability, I would hesitate to keep using this Sony knockoff for anything important. The only other possibility is that the flash drive draws more power than the machines that you have tried to use it on running 10.3.9 supply via their USB port. However, if you've used it on multiple different machines running 10.3.9, that theory won't work either. Sorry I can't help you more...please resubmit the question if you wish.
Koose - Nov 13, 2005 - 11:23 pm
Thank you very much for your reply, you assured me I wasn't going crazy and I will advise the user about buying these type of units. It really looks like the genuine article, but I can not find it on Sony's site. The power issue you mentioned is not the answer either, one of the machines it can be read on is a G4 silver tunnel, which I booted into 9.x, which I then left it in the same usb port and restarted into 10.3.9
Cheers, Mark
Cheers, Mark
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