USB Thumb Drive - Corrupt Files

[SystemFailure0x5a]

So, I have a USB thumb drive that worked well on Windows. I swapped out my old windows laptop for a new M1 Air. I first formatted the USB to APFS, tried to migrate all my training videos and common apps incase I need to reinstall the OS and quickly deploy the apps I use. I can successfully copy these files to my thumb drive, but many of the apps and videos will no longer play, extract, or open/install. I tried reformatting to MacOS Journaled and ran into the same problem.

The zip files become corrupt, mp4 videos will no longer play, and dmg and .app files will no longer launch after copied to the USB. Copying them back to my mac results in the same problem, they are broken. Is my USB faulty, is this a bug, or am I doing something wrong? I have an external SSD on the same USB hub and it works fine.

 

[MacInWin]

Welcome to the forum!

So, I have a USB thumb drive that worked well on Windows. I swapped out my old windows laptop for a new M1 Air. I first formatted the USB to APFS, tried to migrate all my training videos and common apps incase I need to reinstall the OS and quickly deploy the apps I use. I can successfully copy these files to my thumb drive, but many of the apps and videos will no longer play, extract, or open/install. I tried reformatting to MacOS Journaled and ran into the same problem.

The zip files become corrupt, mp4 videos will no longer play, and dmg and .app files will no longer launch after copied to the USB. Copying them back to my mac results in the same problem, they are broken. Is my USB faulty, is this a bug, or am I doing something wrong? I have an external SSD on the same USB hub and it works fine.

I think you meant you formatted it to APFS, which is the new Apple format for storage devices. I take it from your post that these files are safely on something else because you said you tried copying them to the drive as APFS and then again as macOS Journaled (HPS+ is the short version). So, the files are safely somewhere. If that is incorrect, let us know and we will tackle getting the data recovered, if possible.

But, if the files are safely stored somewhere, we will need more information on the problem to be able to figure out the problem. First up is that your MBA is an M1 system, as you noted. And as such, it cannot run any software written for Windows. So, please tell us more about these files. You mentioned zipped files, apps and videos. Are the zipped files self-extracting, and if so, were they created on Windows? If that is the case, the won't run on the Mac, as I said, although it may be possible to look inside the zip and extract the files from there in a different way. Same question for the apps, are the for Windows? If so, they won't run. The videos should play, so tell us what player you are trying to use. I use VLC and it pretty much plays every kind of file I throw at it.

You might also give us some indication of your experience with Mac. Is this your first venture into Macs? Transitioning from Windows to Macs can be a bit jarring, particularly so with the new M1 hardware that is so different from the Intel systems in PCs.

 

[SystemFailure0x5a]

I'm a network engineer, with about 17 years or more of tech experience. Some familiarity with FreeBSD, Solaris UNIX Storage Servers, iptables, some ubuntu/redhat. Lots of Cisco Route/Switch experience. Overall a wide variety of intermediate skills. Enough to usually figure things out on my own. I've owned a few macs but usually just for Logic/FLStudio. The m1 is my first attempt at migrating to the mac platform as my primary desktop for productivity while using x86 hypervisors on separate hardware for labbing and eventually a dedicated custom NAS but I'm not there yet. Short on space so... shuffling things around.

Right now, I have my files safely on an external SSD. It is currently formatted as APFS. I did mean APFS, yes. I'm using a new keyboard and my fingers slip occasionally as I haven't developed the proper muscle memory for the new layout.

Originally, I tried copying the files directly to the APFS USB drive. I then reformatted it, compressed everything, and copied them again. Same issue. Lastly, I reformatted to MacOS Journaled to see if it was a file system issue, considering APFS is new-ish and perhaps an older file system would work better on a USB Flash drive. I haven't checked the sectors or advanced stuff yet. I have homebrew installed and considered using parted, but I'm not an expert on UNIX/MacOS, even though I've worked with tech for a long time I wanted to make sure I'm not walking blind, and a benefit is I can establish a community connection here by asking for assistance.

The videos play while on the SSD. After copying them to the USB, they won't play. Copying them back to another location on my mac to test them results in the 3rd copy not playing either. So it appears writing data to the USB is causing corruption to the files. I tried the built in video player and VLC. The same thing happens to DMG files.

What I suspect is there may be corrupt areas of the USB as some files do not experience this, but many do.

Thanks.

 

[MacInWin]

Thanks for the background, with your experience we can get more tech-y in the suggestions. First up is to run First Aid on the USB to see that it is ok. You do that from Disk Utility, in the Utilities folder of the Applications folder. Start with Disk Utility, then on the top bar of the window, click "View" and then "Show All Devices" to see the hardware level in the left sidebar. Now click on the hardware level item for the USB drive (typically has the vendor name it in, but in all cases it's the least indented level on the sidebar). Then click on First Aid and let it run. That will check the drive for errors at a gross level. If the USB drive has errors, you can try to reformat it, but I have found that once they stumble, USB drives soon fail totally. Assuming it's a stick thumb drive, they aren't that expensive to replace. And they should work well with APFS or HFS+, I have sticks with both kinds happily working in my MBP. If it tests ok at the hardware level, repeat at the Container (if APFS) or partition (if HFS+) level. Finally, for APFS you can run First Aid at the Volume level, but if it tested ok at Container, it most likely will also test ok at Volume level.

If no errors, then I'm stumped as to why copy/paste would break a file. I've never seen that. How are you doing the copy? Using Finder? Any messages during the copy process?

DMG files are disk images, sort of like ISO for Windows. I'm not sure what you meant by

The same thing happens to DMG files.

Do you mean they mount ok, but not from the USB thumb?

Frankly, with all the issues, I think it's the drive gone bad. You can experiment with it, but the simplest solution is to just replace it.

 

[krs]

After you check the USB flash drive as Jake recommended, there are a few questions I have based on your first post:
1.You said: ".... many of the apps and videos will no longer play" - so some do play. Is there anything that stands out between the ones that do play and the ones that do not?
2. If a video does not play, what message omes up - if any?
3. I noticed that you use a USB hub - maybe that is part of the issue when copying to the flash drive.