Brand new Extreme USB 3.0 64 GB, unusable

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Hi,

I’m wondering if anyone can help me…

I bought a USB 3.0 64GB Extreme Flash drive and it won’t work on my MacBook Air (running Lion, 10.7). 

The MBA can detect the drive but nothing works… it freezes up the MBA and one has to force shut the laptop down…

Is there something that i have to do (format etc.) in order to get it to work??

Thanks!

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Take it back to where you bought it.

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I’ve had major issues with my Extreme USB 3.0 64 GB drive as well.

  • It cannot be formatted into NTFS in Windows.
  • It froze OS X when I plugged it into my Macbook Pro, even after formatting it in ExFAT in Windows.  No file can be written to or read from the drive in OS X.  Disk Utility was unable to successfully format the drive.

So I’ve requested a RMA from SanDisk and sent the drive back.

I just received the replacement drive today and all the problems I’ve had are gone!  It works flawlessly in both Windows and Mac (like all standard USB drives should).  It can be formatted to FAT32, NTFS, and ExFAT with no problem at all.

It sounds like SanDisk just had a bad batch of these drives when you hear all the problems that people are having.  My replacement drive works very well so far.  So if you are having issues with your drive, I’d highly encourage you to contact SanDisk and request a replacement.

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Thanks Shinato. That’s great news! I’m getting ready to send mine back with an RMA. I’m happy to hear the problem is fixed. That’s awesome. Run a speedtest and let us know how it goes…

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“It froze OS X when I plugged it into my Macbook Pro, even after formatting it in ExFAT in Windows.”

To the best of my knowledge ExFAT is incompatible with OS X.

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“To the best of my knowledge ExFAT is incompatible with OS X.”

OS X has been fully supporting ExFAT since Snow Leopard (10.6.5).

I’ve been using my replacement Extreme USB 3.0 64GB drive, formatted in ExFAT, to transfer large files between Windows and Mac computers, without any issues.

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Exfat works with all of my other USB thumb drives. You know these super fast thumb drives have SCSI internals. The guts have changed. Perhaps some things need to be changed in the architecture. I would expect a bump in the road for some of these new fast thumb drives.

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“OS X has been fully supporting ExFAT since Snow Leopard (10.6.5).”

Thanks for the feedback. :smiley:  May I ask when 10.6.5 came out?

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10.6.5 was released on November 10, 2010.

There is an issue in that release though, where drives formatted in ExFAT in OS X may not be fully compatible with Windows 7, but drives formatted in ExFAT in Windows will work fine in OS X.

The issue was fixed in 10.6.6, released on January 6, 2011.

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So are you saying that I can’t (or shouldn’t) format my USB stick as HFS+ for Macs? What if I want to create an encrypted partition? 

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I have the same problems with my drive.

Heard about a firmware update that should be released soon. Is there someone from SanDisk who can specify “soon”? Because I don’t want to wait a few weeks longer.

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“Heard about a firmware update that should be released soon.”

Who did you hear that from?  And what was their source since it doesn’t seem to be from SanDisk??

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Heard that from the European press agency which is responsible for SanDisk.

They do not replace my sample drive and say that a firmware update will fix my problems and it will be released soon.

This is the offical SanDisk forum why are there no SanDisk employees?

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@jaegerschnitzel wrote:

 

This is the offical SanDisk forum why are there no SanDisk employees?

Because this is the official SanDisk User’s Forum. There is no official SanDisk Tech Support forum.

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“the European press agency which is responsible for SanDisk”

???

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I do hardware reviews for an online magazine and we get our testing stuff from the press agency, not directly from SanDisk.

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:smiley: I envy your job.  :smiley:

If you hear more about the availability of the firmware upgrade please post back.

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I have the same problem. I tried on Windows XP, 7 and 8. I tried on Linux, parted magic, alos did not work.
I cannot format to any other partition type.  

Windows 8 format to exFat also did not work.

How can I solve the problem?

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“How can I solve the problem?”

Return it to where you bought it.

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You must have not seen my earlier post. I did everything you did and it also failed. Plus I had TWO of the buggers and they did the same thing. I returned them to Sandisk by contacting them through the web since it was past 30 days. I don’t know how they expect you to return these things when the packaging makes you tear it apart. Anyway the technician kept insisting he got NTFS to work. When I mentioned everything I tried he finally relented because he said it does not work on the Mac. I’ve seen two different scenarios now: The first is we got a bad batch. The second is that this problem will be fixed by a firmware update.  I still think it’s the design of the device that’s flawed. How could all of these different types of formats fail, especially gparted. Gparted was funny because it said NTFS format worked. Then when I tried to attach it to Windows 7 x64 it locked my whole machine up. It could see the drive but could not write to it. I’m suppose to finally receive my replacements next week. The guy I spoke with said they had a big back-order. That’s not what I think. I think they realized they had a problem and were making me wait until they fixed it and got a new batch in from manufacturing. It’s an interesting issue. I’ve never had this kind of a problem. By the way, if you want a second brand until Sandisk fixes this, look at the high-end Adata USB 3.0 sticks. They are fast, and work flawless on any Mac and Windows machine I have, including all of the USB 2.0 devices. They are the only manufacturer’s device I’ve been able to get to work this well. No, I don’t work for them either. Get the N005 Pro.  It’s longer but the thing screams.

1 Like