Files from Mac are not showing on USB flash drive in Windows

Question

I copied some “Folders & Files” from Mac onto my USB flash drive. But, when I open that USB flash drive from a Windows PC, it doesn’t shown those files. It only show the files which are from Windows PC. I have checked the "Hidden Items" from the "View" menu. But, there were not those files though it filled the space for those files! How to solve this problem?

As the USB flash drive keep the space of those files, I believe, those files are still on the USB flash drive and I just can’t see them. Is there any way to get those files back? Capacity and format of my USB flash drive is respectively 16 GB and NTFS.

Solution

OS X can only mount NTFS volumes read-only. It cannot write to them without 3rd-party software.

Since you copied the files on a Mac, this leads me to believe that there are two partitions on that flash drive. Windows does not support multiple partitions on a flash drive. This is a limitation of Windows exclusively. Only the 1st partition will be visible. This explains where your files went.

Windows does support multiple partitions on a flash drive if it has its removable media bit (RMB) set, but those flash drives are rare. However, even on the off chance that you have one of these flash drives, Windows still doesn't support the Mac HFS+ format without 3rd-party software -- not even read-only.

So in either case, it makes perfect sense why you wouldn't see the files you copied from the Mac.

Really, your only option here is to plug the drive into another Mac. If you want to be able to use the flash drive on both PC and Mac, you need to reformat it as FAT32 or exFAT. Those are the only two filesystems that both Windows and OS X support in read-write mode.

Comments

[Admin]

If you plug the file back into the machine running OS X can you see the files?

[Admin]

actually, I couldn't check this. That mac pc is not mine. But, as it's keeping the spacing for those files, I believe, those are in the usb flash drive still. I just can't access those.

[DavidPostill]

His disk is already NTFS - as it says in the question.

[jayhc]

I didn't say it wasn't NTFS. I said the permissions of the NTFS volume may be incorrect, especially if he formatted it on his mac.

[user1896653]

I need the files. That's why, I don't want to format this without trying to get those files.... (if there is any way)

[jayhc]

Can you try the second set of instructions? Read about attrib here: technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490868.aspx The command will look like this: "attrib -h -r -s /s /d H:*.*", where "H" is the drive letter of the mounted flash drive.

[user1896653]

When I run this "attrib -h -r -s /s /d H:*.*" command, it shows, "Access denied - H:\System Volume Information"

[jayhc]

Can you make sure you are in an elevated command prompt? Right click on CMD in your icon bar and Run as Administrator and retry.

[user1896653]

still same result: i.imgur.com/Fz8bE5T.png

[jayhc]

Unfortunately my guess is that the permissions are such that you will not be able to read or enumerate the files. Probably out of luck.