"The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer." How do I access info on USB flashdrive?
Since my HD was initialized with a Mac, I was able to use Disk Utility's First Aid functions to first verify and then repair the volume.
If you formatted the drive on a Windows computer, there is the possibility that the format is NTFS which is not natively supported on OS X. If this is the case, you can add the read and write functionality to NTFS volumes using this video.
If you know that the drive is not NTFS, and were able to previously access it using your Apple computer, I would then recommend seeing if the machine even recognizes it. This can be achieved by using the following steps:
- Click the Apple icon in the upper left-hand corner of your screen
- Select the "About This Mac" option from the menu
- In the box which appears on the screen, select the "System Report" button in the "Overview" tab. (This will open another window which you can use to find out more in-depth details about your Apple device)
- In the new window which opened (System Information), select USB from the left-hand column under the Hardware category.
- From this point, you can see the USB bus, and all things connected to it, you may need to expand any "hub" section here, as it varies per model. If your device does not show up here, it could mean a number of things:
- That port is damaged and unusable: Ruled in/out by using another USB device in that port and verifying function.
- The USB drive is bad: ruled in/out by checking to see if it is recognized on another computer
- OS X is not recognizing USB devices properly (Unlikely, but anything is possible): Ruled in/out by trying other USB devices and drives
Hopefully this helps!