Transfering photos to usb gadget?

frugalsar

I'm copy / pasting my photos from my imac to a 16gb usb pen drive gadget but then when i go into each individual file and try to open the photos it says the some of the files are corrupt and wont open them?, does this mean my usb gadget is corrupt or am i doing something wrong?

fwor

It should be no more complex than you describe.

If you got the pendrive from a trustworthy source, it may simply be faulty and you can hopefully get it replaced.

If it came from an unknown source (e.g. from Ebay) then it may be a fake - a smaller drive formatted in a way that makes it seem to be bigger.

Either way the Mac equivalent of linux Gparted or Windows chkdsk should be able to check it's integrity.

skint999

What format are the pictures in on the imac?

frugalsar

There in .jpg?

frugalsar

oh I bought it from ebay? I did format it with windows on my other computer? but I dont know how to do the other things and have since got rid of my windows computer?

fwor

I've tried formatting USB pendrives under Windows, and the results are often not good - particularly if the drive is already corrupted.

Hewlett Packard have a very good pendrive formatting tool that you can download for free, but I don't ~think~ there's a version for anything other than Windows - but may be worth Googling for.

The pessimistic view would be that if you bought it off Ebay from a Far East seller (or a UK reseller for a Far East seller) then it's probably a fake - maybe a 1Gb chip formatted to look like 16Gb. You would only see corruption after it was more than 1Gb full, at which point any extra data added would simply disappear.

fwor

Here's an example:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=689139

Interesting that UK-based suppliers seem to want around £60+ for 16Gb pendrives, but you can get them for around £12 postage free from Hong Kong on Ebay. I wonder why they are so cheap....

skint999

Have you tried out other media? e.g. disc? just to rule out other possibilities?

Marty_J

Can't you format it as FAT32 using Disk Utility?

Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility

Select the pen drive on the left.

Click the "erase" tab.

In the "Volume format" box, select "MS-DOS"

Click the Erase button.

weegie.geek

I'd place money on it being a 1GB (or less!) drive masquerading as a 16GB one, as fwor said. It's really common on ebay.

ormus

amazon sell them for 30 quid inc free delivery.
(proper warranty).

the HP usb format tool is ok for some usb drives. it formats them properly. shame it doesnt work for all though.