SD card not readable on Mac after formating with Mavic controler

[Whiteeskimo]

I have been using all my SD cards in my Mavic
and now i have sold it and the SD cards are no longer read able on my Mac book air
When i insert the card into my mac it is not visible on my desktop
and then when i go into disk utilities the partition function is greyed out
How do I reformat the card so i can use it on my Mac?
I have heard that some people have used a PC computer to format them
Thanks in advance

 

[Thomas B]

Don’t know which drone you own from your post, but I have always formatted my SD cards in my M2P. After that I just transfer the vids and pics via a card reader and trash the files on the card w/o formatting again.

 

[dirkclod]

You didn’t get what he’s saying Thomas.
I had a program on my iMac in Catalina but just updated to Big Sur
and can’t find it. You could do whatever to your card with it and will look again.
What’s strange to me is I do as Tom other than I reformat in the app as soon as I start another day.
You have to have something off in your Mac. I’m not techie enough
to talk about differant types of formats but bet someone will chime in.

 

[Thomas B]

You didn’t get what he’s saying Thomas.
I had a program on my iMac in Catalina but just updated to Big Sur
and can’t find it. You could do whatever to your card with it and will look again.
What’s strange to me is I do as Tom other than I reformat in the app as soon as I start another day.
You have to have something off in your Mac. I’m not techie enough
to talk about differant types of formats but bet someone will chime in.

Sorry... @dirkclod is correct... I format the SS cards in my M2P, transfer the files as stated above,and they simply open on my iMac with no extra software/app needed. I record as jpeg+DNG.

 

[Drone Master]

I noticed that the op said that the partition feature is greyed out when viewing the disc utility. He would need the erase feature to format. Not the partition option. Also if the card does not show up on the desktop, you can use finder to see if it shows there. Normally you should see the drive in the disc utilities interface.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

I have been using all my SD cards in my Mavic
and now i have sold it and the SD cards are no longer read able on my Mac book air
When i insert the card into my mac it is not visible on my desktop
and then when i go into disk utilities the partition function is greyed out
How do I reformat the card so i can use it on my Mac?
I have heard that some people have used a PC computer to format them
Thanks in advance

If you are using Big Sur you will need to turn on the Devices under General on the Finder Window for some reason it get shut off on the Update install .


Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly you Mavic in the Rain and Land on Water.

 

[Whiteeskimo]

If you are using Big Sur you will need to turn on the Devices under General on the Finder Window for some reason it get shut off on the Update install .
View attachment 118772

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly you Mavic in the Rain and Land on Water.

Yes I have just upgraded to Big Sur, and I did as you instructed , but I am still unable to see the option to Partition
The option is still greyed out

Don’t know which drone you own from your post, but I have always formatted my SD cards in my M2P. After that I just transfer the vids and pics via a card reader and trash the files on the card w/o formatting again.

Thank you for all your help
I was using a Mavic Pro
After I would copy the files .
I would then format the card for the next time
But since upgrading to Big Sur the partition function is greyed out
but things have changed
I have sold the Mavic and I now want to use the cards for different purposes
I will need to format them and when i go to just format them they do not properly

 

[DoomMeister]

If you have access to a Windows or Linux PC, see if you can format the SD cards there. Once that occurs you should be able to see them on your Mac.

Do make sure you check the options that @Phantomrain.org brought to light. He said things get shut off when updating to Big Sur.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Yes I have just upgraded to Big Sur, and I did as you instructed , but I am still unable to see the option to Partition
The option is still greyed out

Thank you for all your help
I was using a Mavic Pro
After I would copy the files .
I would then format the card for the next time
But since upgrading to Big Sur the partition function is greyed out
but things have changed
I have sold the Mavic and I now want to use the cards for different purposes
I will need to format them and when i go to just format them they do not properly

You do not want to Partition you want to format the Card and you need to do that in the Drone or a Camera.

Phantomrain.org
Coal

 

[DoomMeister]

You do not want to Partition you want to format the Card and you need to do that in the Drone or a Camera.

Phantomrain.org
Coal

You are correct about not partitioning the SD cards, but the Mac should recognize the SD cards and be able to format them. I am actually shocked that it cannot recognize a card that was formatted in the Mavic as that would be FAT32.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

You are correct about not partitioning the SD cards, but the Mac should recognize the SD cards and be able to format them. I am actually shocked that it cannot recognize a card that was formatted in the Mavic as that would be FAT32.

So that would be windows format only , so that is why it is not showing up. Big Sur has some issues and this is one of them . I just found a new product that is a portable hard drive made by seta that is both windows and Mac friendly it’s been a long time coming .

 

[SkyeHigh]

So that would be windows format only , so that is why it is not showing up. Big Sur has some issues and this is one of them . I just found a new product that is a portable hard drive made by seta that is both windows and Mac friendly it’s been a long time coming .

MacOS is fully capable of reading and writing FAT32 volumes. It is the most universal format for all computer platforms.

Your best option, as others have mentioned, is to format it on a Windows PC.

It’s possible the file system is corrupt but your Mac should still allow you to format it just ignore the partition and let it format the whole volume.

 

[DanMan32]

Or ExFAT for media greater than 32GB, but that too is universally recognized.

SD cards don't have partitions like HDs do, though perhaps they can. They're handled more like giant floppies. You format them like you'd do with floppies or specific partitions on an HD.

Problem could be the cards, but could also be the reader.

 

[SkyeHigh]

You could try entering: ‘diskutil list’ in Terminal to see what devices are correctly mounted.

 

[rehkram]

Get another Dji drone and use the cards for that? Or buy new cards?

Sorry, that's all I got. Different vendor devices tend to end up 'owning' the cards due to standards, or more accurately, deviations therefrom.

 

[Alan_M]

I know this is an old thread now, but I had this issue the other day on my Mac running Big Sur. The SD card didn’t show up in Finder or on my desktop when it was inserted. It did show up in the disk utility though, and I noticed that the SD card didn’t have a name after being formatted by the drone. I just renamed it in disk utility, ejected it, and reinserted it, and it popped right up on my desktop.