howdee - im a new user, but registered for just this one long/detailed comment/reply..
0 - THANK YOU to all who came before on this hint/thread/comment.. i am just standing on top of the giants before and adding my little comments for others..
1 - i could not make a windows-keyboard work.. in particular, my imac (g5) would 'ask' about it when powering up by having me press the key 'just inside of shift key' on each side.. thus, i was never able to make the keyboard-combo work correctly.. if you cannot get into open-firmware, then try getting a normal MAC-keyboard..
Macbook Pro Not Reading Usb
Jan 10, 2020 Like we mentioned above, it is likely that the Mac is not the problem at all but the USB itself is failing to connect to the Mac. To check if this is a connection issue and that the USB you are using is damaged or not, try connecting a different USB device to the Mac to see if it's recognized. Jun 15, 2010 Insert the drive in the Mac and start Disk Utility (Utilities folder). Select the drive in the left column. Be sure to select the drive (all the way to the left) not a volume (indented below the drive name). Select the 'Partition' tab. Set 'Volume Scheme' to '1 Partition' (not 'Current' even if it's already one partition). Click the 'Options' button'. As said earlier, both Windows and Mac will have different methods. Read through the below procedure: Easy Methods to Fix “Flash Drive Not Recognized” Problem in Windows. Method 1: Scan the Flash Drive for Issues. Every computer has an inbuilt mode of scanning any USB drive attached to it. My operating system is window 8 and I am running mac OS in a Virtual box.I have successfully install the Mac OS on oracle Virtual box but when I used my Pen drive it's not detect in mac OS. I have install external software for USB devices for virtualbox extension pack 4.2.16 but my problem not solved. Please check my screenshot's.
Macbook Pro Not Reading Usb
2 - i was having all sorts of problems trying to get the correct device to use for the 'dir' command.. i could see the tree of information, but could never make a working 'devalias' for myself.. two clues:
a - if (when you type devalias xx yyy@yyyyyyyy) you receive a comment 'no alias' in response, then it did NOT work.. you should see a 'good' response of just the word OK.. even so, i was never able to 'use' my own devalias..
b - i noticed in one of the later-comments someone had tried just typing the word 'devalias' without anything else.. when i typed that, i got a nice long list of predefined aliases.. in particular, i could see one called 'first-boot' that looked like it should access my working tiger-hdd internally.. also, if i just typed 'boot' it would do what youd expect [boot from the first-boot device, which is the current internal hdd]..
3 - i was finally able to get things working better by doing/trying the following (details removed for hopeful-clarity): Pa system software, free download.
Macbook Not Reading Usb Drive
- and i finally saw something good.. nb, i needed the exact-extra-characters listed [7 chars starting with / and ending with ] to get a 'good' dir.. and i assume others will have the devalias of 'first-boot' predefined like i did..
- was the magic incantation i used for getting to my external-usb-key [8gb formatted/dmg-restored as needed].. in particular, the '1:3' here on usb0 and the '0:3' with first-boot matched the disk:partition information i got when i looked at the key using the regular get-info command from tigers disk-utility..
i could do a more-detailed 'dir' on the key until i got to the ..CoreServices directory level.. i could NOT actually do a 'dir' on the BootX file itself.. but the CoreServices directory showed the 'magic' tbxi flag on that BootX file that i expected to see..
i could use the 'UP-ARROW' to repeat the last command that id typed, so that i could just change the 'dir' to a 'boot' and add the BootX to the end and it would work.. (using left- and right-arrows to leave the other good characters in place)
4 - once i got my magic incantation correct, it took prolly an hour to get thru the first-boot - but eventually i got the great happy-mac sound from the other room.. hopefully you will be able to too.. :)
repeating: for me, the exact command i used was .. gl & hth, h.