[NTLUG:Discuss] USB drive is recognized in Windows but does not show up any files on it

[fredjame at fredjame.cnc.net]

Ralph wrote:
> Howdy Fred,
>   I can make several point, but I can;t give you a simple answer.
>
>   1. Mageia 5 is a little old.  Mageia probably would give you better
> results with this issue, although you may have reasons for staying
> with 5.
>   2 exFAT is proprietary and controlled by Microsoft.  They like to
> change their systems and Linux must figure out what they have done.
> They usually do, but it takes time.
>  3. The FAT32 filesystem is likely to give you readability on both
> Linux and Windows.  It uses larger allocation units, so it may be less
> efficient.  Assuming you want to format the first partition on sdd,
> you could type:   mkdosfs -F 32 -I /dev/sdd1
>   You must check and double check that sdd is the right device name.
> I usually start with dmesg and follow up with a fdisk -l to be sure I
> have the right drive device.
>  4.  I have one 64GB SD card in a Linux system.  That is the boot
> drive of a Raspberry Pi Zero W and it uses FAT32.  I might try XFS,
> but Microsoft has a policy of not supporting decent filesystems.  I
> think it is more than NIH, but that is an opinion.
>  5.  The mount command will give you information on mounted filesystems.
> Good luck,
> Ralph

 Ralph
Thank you for the reply and the clarification.  All I do with USB drives is format them to a Linux file system, so I otherwise may never have run into exFAT until Linux had caught up.  I try to keep one Fat32 drive for emergencies but with webmail that need becomes more and more unlikely, too.  Thanks again, it is good to know.
Regards
Fred James