I have an OCZ Rally2 16GB USB stick which I use to move programmes from my Humax Foxsat HDR to my Mac. As I use the stick for other purposes as well, I sometimes end up having to reformat it as a different file system.
On occasion, my Humax Foxsat HDR stops recognising the USB stick. In the past I have tried to reformat it as FAT 32 using the Mac Disk Utility. This often does not create a result that is recognised by my Humax either. Likewise, I have tried using GParted on a linux boot CD to format it to ext3 (or FAT 32). This also is not always successfully recognised by the Humax.
After much head scratching, I tried the following on my Mac, and this resulted in a USB Stick that was recognised as FAT 32 by my Humax. This solution was done on a Mac, not Windows.
Please Note: Using fdisk can completely screw your system if you input the wrong disk number. It will not warn you if you are about to do something stupid! I take no responsibility if you inadvertently wipe your computer.
1. Open Disk Utility. Find the disk in the list that you want to format, control-click and select "Information". You're looking for the "Disk Identifier," which should be something like disk1, disk2, disk3 etc. You can also use the following command in the Terminal: diskutil list to get this information.
2. Create the DOS partition table. Open Terminal and type fdisk -e /dev/rdisk#, where # is the disk number you got from step one. Now type auto dos to create one big FAT32 partition. Finally, type write and then quit to save the new partition table.
3. Format the FAT32 partition. Type newfs_msdos -F 32 -v "MyVolumeName" /dev/rdisk#s1, where # is the disk number you got in step one. This will format the drive as FAT32.
4. Check if the volume is mounted. If it isn't, close and reopen Disk Utility, select "MyVolumeName" and choose File -> Mount."
Here's a transcript to show the commands and the response output. In my case the disk number was 4.
[~] % fdisk -e /dev/rdisk4
fdisk: could not open MBR file /usr/standalone/i386/boot0: No such file or directory
Enter 'help' for information
fdisk: 1> auto dos
fdisk:*1> write
Device could not be accessed exclusively.
A reboot will be needed for changes to take effect. OK? [n] y
Writing MBR at offset 0.
fdisk: 1> quit
[~] % newfs_msdos -F 32 -v "STICK" /dev/rdisk4s1
newfs_msdos: /dev/rdisk4s1 is mounted on /Volumes/STICK
I am not entirely sure why the Humax on occasion doesn't like the USB stick. I notice elsewhere that others have had similar issues with people speculating it might be something to do with the chipset in the USB stick. However, I am inclined to think it is related to the Master Boot Record, which people often recreate, especially if they have formatted the stick with a different partition table. Quite why Disk Utility does not have the same effect as the steps above, or why GParted doesn't work properly either, I do not know. It may have something to do with the MBR offset, or a creation date, but that's speculation.
There might be a similar process using fdisk on Windows, but as I haven't used Windows for quite some time, I am unable to say what that might be.
