My father uses a usb flash drive for backup, and is replacing it because the old flash drive has apparently failed (more below).

He wants to format the new (4GB ) drive for Mac and will need to use it on two machines: a Lombard running OS 9.2.2 and an iMac running Leopard.

Which machine should he use to format the drive? Are there any incompatibilities between the two OS's in regard to formatting for this kind of drive? We need to minimize any problems that might arise from moving the drive back and forth (and we wonder whether movement back and forth is what corrupted the first drive).

The failed drive appears to have some kind of corruption of the file system or drive structure-- in Leopard, Disk Utility sees that there are files on it, but when opened, the drive spontaneously dismounts, yielding error messages etc about bad disk ejection. Disk First Aid chokes on it, causing it to dismount, and Super Duper can't back it up.

In OS 9, the failed drive opens to show icons etc, but also yields error messages upon dismounting. I haven't tried running DiskWarrior on it yet because my father has the OS 9 version handy, but not the Leopard version. In any case, we want to set up a new backup drive before we mess around with trying to further repair or reformat the bum drive.

Thanks for any suggestions...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2008 05:54PM by Janit.

DOS/FAT32 should be fine.

Always format those as a peecee. If nothing else, FAT32 is better than nothing at all, but FAT16 is best unless being used for that idiocy to boost Vista, as if the RAM in those is faster than a standard HD, then
do whatever that instruction requires.

The point being, that when you format it as a Mac, even a peecee doesn't know it has been inserted into
the USB port. And that could become valuable one day for data recovery.

The Mac has been reading peecee files since the SuperDrive floppy came out (when..... 1988?) - and
with the exception of booting, I don't see any reason to not retain the peecee format. And that is even
true for floppies back then. It was nuts to pay more for Mac formated floppies when the PC ones would
make for copying and data recovery on any standard piece of shiite PC machine.

Same is true of those thumb drives. You just never know when the data that is on them is critical and
you lose a drive - and you need it burned to a DVD. A peecee could read it..... UINLESS if it is
formated as an HFS+ -------- then you'll have nothing, except the need to hunt down a Mac or go
to a store and take blank discs.

All those apps you mention work on the standard PC format just fine. Stick with it.
HFS+

What is thing called "OS 9"? Tarzan not understand.

Format it on the Lombard under OS 9, the iMac will see it just fine.

You should be able to run DW on the current drive in OS 9 without any issues.

---

Aloha, Ken


“I have developed significant attachments to several members even though I wouldn't recognize them if I sat next to one on a park bench. I'm often tempted when in an airport to walk around, hollering "The Løpe", to see if anyone other than the Homeland Security people will acknowledge me. ” - The Løpe

Quote
Jimmypoo
I don't see any reason to not retain the peecee format.

Counting to ten...breathe...breathe...

1) The USB flash drives come formatted as FAT32. This is a problem because...

2) OS9 files and apps are composed of both a data fork and a resource fork and...

3) OSX splits files into these two parts when writing them to a DOS type format and...

4) OS 9 sees these two parts as separate files and can't recombine them and ...

5) OS 9 often can't use these split files without further manupulation therefore...

6) It is easier to maintain smooth movement between an OS9 machine and an OSX machine if the USB flash drive is formatted for Mac and finally...

7) We have over ten Macs in the extended family, so we don't need no stinkin PeeCees to do our troubleshooting ;)



EDIT: Thanks, Harbourmaster.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2008 06:51PM by Janit.

Run 2.11 on a Leopard drive?

I seem to recall doing that once upon Jaguar (and it was wicked fast too),
but there are elements on the files themselves it doesn't know.

They (Alsoft) weren't keen on using 3.03 r39 on Leopard at all, and were
luke warm on 4.0 (Tiger) on Leopard, but noted it wouldn't HURT anything.

If it is just data, and at least ends up showing on ONE of the machines, that's
GOOD, but long term, without a copy of the data, I'd be very hesitant to run
a copy of DW 2.xx on a Leopard intended file system without making damn sure
you examine that directory THOROUGHLY - before accepting the replacement.

Though, of course, it may be the only directory you have at this stage...

Quote
Janit

Quote
Jimmypoo
I don't see any reason to not retain the peecee format.

Counting to ten...breathe...breathe...

You asked for suggestions and you got that and reasons why. As versed as you are regarding the
consequences of pc file allocation tables in 9 vs X ---- what exactly was it that you were seeking?


Oh.... and YOU'RE WELCOME.

"3) OSX splits files into these two parts when writing them to a DOS type format and..."

This causes me all sorts of issues at work, let me tell you.......

When running in OS 9 you are perfectly safe using DW 2xx

Quote
Alsoft
DiskWarrior 2.1 is not compatible with disks that have Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or later installed. It is also not compatible with any disk that has been attached to a Mac running Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

For those disks with Mac OS X 10.2.2 to 10.3.9 installed and journaling turned on, DiskWarrior 2.1 will rebuild the directory of the disk, but it will turn off journaling. Once DiskWarrior 2.1 has finished rebuilding the directory, you will need to turn journaling back on. This is not an issue for DiskWarrior 3.0 and later.

---

Aloha, Ken


“I have developed significant attachments to several members even though I wouldn't recognize them if I sat next to one on a park bench. I'm often tempted when in an airport to walk around, hollering "The Løpe", to see if anyone other than the Homeland Security people will acknowledge me. ” - The Løpe

Quote
Racer X
"3) OSX splits files into these two parts when writing them to a DOS type format and..."

This causes me all sorts of issues at work, let me tell you.......

That only happens to files with resource forks, like those that have custom icons and alias files.

Leopard no longer splits files on most PC-compatible volumes. It uses an extended attribute that's Windows-friendly.

Quote

2) OS9 files and apps are composed of both a data fork and a resource fork and...

OS 9 apps are, but not necessarily files. Most data files are data-fork files. If you don't know for sure then use Stuffit to compress your files before copying them to a memory card and the resource fork will be preserved.

Quote

It is easier to maintain smooth movement between an OS9 machine and an OSX machine if the USB flash drive is formatted for Mac

Sometimes, but it can be tricky to erase the flash drive properly for this purpose if your OS X Mac has an Intel processor. It's really easiest just to erase the drive as a DOS volume. If you try to erase the drive from the Finder in OS 9, that will almost certainly be what it defaults to.

Vindication.....

Quote
Jimmypoo
Vindication.....

More like sanitation...

BGnR

---

"Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!"
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
"Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
"A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."

Quote
Jimmypoo
Vindication.....

Well... everyone's right... sort of...


OS 9 wouldn't format the USB flash drive as a Mac Volume.

Leopard on an Intel Mac formatted it as a Mac volume with the following curious results when viewing with Disk Utility:

When I highlight the volume, I get the Volume Format showing as MacOS Extended (in the Erase panel). However, when I highlight the whole drive, the Volume Format still shows as MS-DOS (FAT). For the whole drive, I get Partition Map Scheme: Master Boot Record. Get Info on the mounted volume shows MacOS Extended.

I say this is curious because the old bum drive shows the Volume Format as MacOS Extended in the Erase panel for both the volume AND the whole drive. And the whole drive shows Partition Map Scheme: unformatted.

The bum drive must have been formatted for Mac last year on my sister's G5 under Panther, so I don't know if the Partition Map Scheme = unformatted is a result of PPC Panther formatting or a symptom of the bum drive.

Whew!

The goal of all this is to give my father an easy way to back up his data files with regularity (like every time he makes a major change) and for him to be able to use both computers without major angst, which means keeping it VERY simple.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/2008 12:06AM by Janit.

can a thumb drive be partition for windows and mac os 9?

alternately... zip files before putting them on the thumb drive from os 9 - resource/data forks will remain intact. dropstuff oughta handle that.

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Quote
MacMagus

Quote
Racer X
"3) OSX splits files into these two parts when writing them to a DOS type format and..."

This causes me all sorts of issues at work, let me tell you.......

That only happens to files with resource forks, like those that have custom icons and alias files.

Leopard no longer splits files on most PC-compatible volumes. It uses an extended attribute that's Windows-friendly.

Quote

2) OS9 files and apps are composed of both a data fork and a resource fork and...

OS 9 apps are, but not necessarily files. Most data files are data-fork files. If you don't know for sure then use Stuffit to compress your files before copying them to a memory card and the resource fork will be preserved.

Quote

It is easier to maintain smooth movement between an OS9 machine and an OSX machine if the USB flash drive is formatted for Mac

Sometimes, but it can be tricky to erase the flash drive properly for this purpose if your OS X Mac has an Intel processor. It's really easiest just to erase the drive as a DOS volume. If you try to erase the drive from the Finder in OS 9, that will almost certainly be what it defaults to.

I use 10.3.9 and 10.4.11. Just because the new 2009 cars are for sale doesn't meant everyone has one in their driveway......

I can have a FAT 16/FAT 32 thumb drive with files written on an XP laptop, but when I plug it into a Mac, the desktop folder gets rebuilt instantly, and the data and resource forks get split.

Janit,

Something I didn't see mentioned in the thread. Copying files to a thumb drive formatted for Windows is slow at least when compared to copying the same files to a Mac formatted drive. Since I have Macs all over the place, I always format thumb drives for the Mac. Bear in mind, this is just my experience with thumb drives.

Robert

Quote
Racer X
I can have a FAT 16/FAT 32 thumb drive with files written on an XP laptop, but when I plug it into a Mac, the desktop folder gets rebuilt instantly, and the data and resource forks get split.

Try converting your forks to sporks. Get back to us on that.

Quote
Robert M
Janit,

Something I didn't see mentioned in the thread. Copying files to a thumb drive formatted for Windows is slow at least when compared to copying the same files to a Mac formatted drive. Since I have Macs all over the place, I always format thumb drives for the Mac. Bear in mind, this is just my experience with thumb drives.

Robert

Thanks Robert. Which version(s) of OSX did you use to format the drives? Have your Mac-formatted thumb drives been stable?


In general, I need a solution that is simply plug, copy, and play (like using Mac-formatted floppies or ZIP cartridges back in the day). My father has been comfortable with doing it that way for years, and learning how to stuff/unstuff etc is more than he can handle at this point. Learning how to work in OSX has been a major challenge for him already, and I know from experience that I would get a phone call every time he needs to back up or retrieve a file with questions like, "How do I do this again? I can't find the instructions you wrote for me."

Jan,

I formatted them under OS 10.3.x, 10.4.x, and 10.5.x. I always make sure to include OS 9.x drivers during the formatting process. Never a problem. Never any flakiness.

Currently, my "thumb drive" of choice is a Lexar firewire Compact Flash reader/writer with an 1 gig or 8 gig Compact Flash chip. I also have various USB thumb drives, which I use regularly, too.

Robert